The Hong Kong five cent was first issued in 1866 during the reign of Queen Victoria. The obverse has an effigy of Queen Victoria by William Wyon along with the legend QUEEN VICTORIA. The reverse has the legend HONG KONG FIVE CENT with Chinese characters in the centre depicting the date, denomination and country of origin.
The official currency of Hong Kong following British rule was the British Pound although it was not well received by the population as the traders were used to the Chinese system of using the weight of silver for their transactions. It was the policy of the British Government to introduce sterling silver coinage to their colonies since 1825 and the Spanish and Mexican eight Reales became legal tender and set at a value of four shillings two pence. The Government eventually concluded that their efforts to introduce the sterling coinage was unsuccessful in overcoming the strong local support of the Spanish silver dollar. The British Government made the decision, as it had also done in Canada, that it could not displace the local currency and the Royal Mint in London commenced the issue of special subsidiary coinage to run alongside the local dollar currency.