Silver Shilling

The one shilling coin made its first appearance during the reign of Henry VII, but in that period it was known as a Testoon, it was not until Edward VI came onto the throne that the word for this coin became known as the shilling. The shilling continued to be minted until 1967, when the coin minted after that was a 5 pence piece, the new coins were the same size as a shilling, but in 1990 the 5p coin was reduced in size and the larger coins were demonetised.

 For a collectors point, the shilling is an interesting coin because of the many variants during its history, it has been reported that when Charles I was on the throne there were 76 different variations, with some unusual provisional issues. Like all silver coins in the UK, when the price of silver rose in price substantially the silver content was reduced in 1920 from 92.5% to 50% and in 1947 changed to Cupro-nickel. Even during the latter monarchs there were two issues a English Shilling and a Scottish Shilling.

	Silver Sixpences The sixpence first appeared in 1551and were in constant production until 1971, when decimalisation was introduced, the sixpence remained part of the currency up until 1980