"Peter Masson" wrote in message
...

I think I've only once seen a crown used as payment in a normal
transaction - around 1955 a boy in the class paid his week's dinner money
(5
shillings) using one.

I didn't think that crown coins were intended for general circulation, and
were used mainly as commemorative pieces because they were too big. But they
were legal, so there technically would have been no problem using it.

I know that there was a pre-decimilisation 10-shilling banknote, but was
there ever a five-shilling banknote?

Incidentally, I'd read a while ago that some of the five-pound coins, which
are also crown-sized, had come into general circulation.