5 Pounds - Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee - Head of Armed Forces

Alderney, the smallest of the inhabited Channel Islands with a population under 2,000, has issued commemorative crowns under Crown Dependency status since the 1990s — effectively licensing its name to the Pobjoy Mint and similar producers for collector pieces that never meaningfully circulate. This 2012 issue marks Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee in her capacity as Head of the Armed Forces, one of several distinct Jubilee titles exploited across a sprawling series of commemoratives that year.

The Channel Islands were the only British territory occupied by Nazi Germany during the Second World War, a fact that lends Alderney's royal allegiance a particular historical weight that most issuing authorities lack.