50 Pence - Elizabeth II Cheshire Cat, Silver Proof

The Isle of Man has issued commemorative coinage under its own authority since 1709, though its modern collector program — prolific and occasionally chaotic — dates to the Pobjoy Mint era beginning in the 1970s. The Cheshire Cat issue draws on Lewis Carroll's 1865 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a work Carroll dedicated in part to Alice Liddell, whose family had connections to Christ Church, Oxford, where Carroll spent most of his academic life. The KM#1701a designation places this within a silver proof variant struck alongside a base metal circulation type — standard practice for Manx commemoratives of this period.