Two crowns with two Queens

A big day in British history. This afternoon at 17.30 BST Queen Elizabeth will become the longest serving monarch that these islands have known. She will surpass Queen Victoria's reign of 63 years and 7 months.

To commemorate the event I give you two crown coins. In pre-decimal currency a crown was worth 5 shillings, or 60 old pence; the equivalent of 25 new pence in our current currency.

How monetary values have changed. The crown from1893 was made from an ounce of sterling silver while the 1965 Churchill commemorative crown was made from a cheap alloy of copper and nickel. In terms of buying power, based on average earnings, a crown in 1893 was worth the equivalent of £103 today and the 1965 crown about £8.