1/2 Crown - George VI

Southern Rhodesia's wartime silver issues were quietly debased from .925 to .500 fineness in 1944, a change driven not by fiscal crisis but by the global silver shortage created when the United States began hoarding the metal for industrial war production under the Silver Purchase Act. The colony was not alone — virtually every sterling-area territory made the same reduction that year.

KM#15a distinguishes the debased type from its predecessor. The shift is invisible to casual inspection but immediately apparent on a scale.