THE Royal Mint has revealed the most rare 50p coins in circulation – and some could fetch you up to £1,000.
The coin maker has listed the official mintage, when it was first made, of its most rare 50p designs.
Mintage figures tell you how many of each coin were ever made.
If a coin has a low mintage figure, that means the coin is rare because there are less of them in circulation.
The most popular coin that can fetch the owner potentially hundreds is the 50p coin.
This is because there were a whole hoard of different designs minted, including Harry Potter themed coins like Harry himself.
The most sought after coin is the Kew Gardens 50p, evening sparking a bidding wars amongst collectors on eBay desperate to get their hands on the coin.
Some are willing to pay hundreds of pounds to claim it for their own – with some listings hitting bids as high as £580 – a whopping 1,160 times more than the 50p’s face value.
But you can often guarantee that a hard to find coin will be one someone could spend a lot of money on.
Here are the Royal Mint’s top rarest 50ps and how much we’ve seen them sell for recently on eBay:
Triathlon – worth £16
- Mintage: 1,163,500
The Triathlon 50p was minted in 2011 and 1,163,500 in total were made.
There are over 200 million 50ps circulating in the UK, which makes the Triathlon 50p a very rare find.
In 2011, Royal Mint circulated unique 50ps depicting the sport featuring in the upcoming 2012 London, Olympic Games.
The highest bid we’ve found on eBay today for the 50p is £16.
But we’ve previously seen it go for £34.
Judo – worth £18
- Mintage: 1,161,500
Judo is a popular sport that involves holding down your opponent.
Despite the 50p coin depicting this very action, it’s not such an easy coin to grab hold of.
It was designed by David Cornell, who won a competition that saw his design printed on 1,161,500 50ps.
It was minted in 2011 and the highest bid we’ve seen on eBay was for £18.
But it’s previously gone for £29.
Wrestling – worth £14.50
- Mintage: 1,129,500
Wrestling was one of the first Olympic sports.
With a low mintage, this coin could earn you up to £14.50 online.
We’ve previously seen it go for up to £52.88 earlier this year.
This coin was designed by Roderick Enriquez, a graphic designer from Hammersmith.
Despite being one of the rarest coins, the value of the coin depends on the eyes of the bidder and this one hasn’t fetched nearly as much of a high price as the rarest coin, the Kew Gardens 50p.
Football – worth £20
- Mintage: 1,125,500
The Royal Mint made a number of 50p coins commemorating the London 2012 Olympics.
Of all the coins created to commemorate the games, the 50p Football is among the rarest and features an explanation of the offside rule on it.
It’s a great design for fans of a kick-about, and might help you brush up on your knowledge of the big game as well.
We found one that sold for £20 in August.
But you could sell it for as much as £75 on eBay – as one seller did back in June.
Kew Gardens – worth £650
- Mintage: 210,000
The Kew Gardens 50p is the rarest of all the 50p pieces and has sold for as much as £1,000 on eBay in the past.
We found one that sold in September for £650.
That’s because there are only 210,000 of the coins in circulation in the UK.
This coin often is the one that sparks the interest of new coin collectors.
The design was created by Christopher Le Brun RA and features the famous Chinese Pagoda with a leafy chamber that twists around the tower.
How much are other 50p coins worth?
Many coins can be worth much more when sold on eBay as part of a collection.
Although sometimes you’ll get better individual prices if another collector needs your coin to complete their collection.
The rare Blue Peter Olympic 50p has been flogged on eBay for £205 in the past.
The coin shows an athlete doing the high jump and was drawn by nine-year-old Florence Jackson after winning a competition on the kid’s TV show.
To his surprise, one seller managed to pocket a whopping £63,000 flogging his Battle of Hasting’s 50p too.
Coins with mistakes tend to be among the highest values as well, because they’ll also come in extremely limited numbers.
One 50p that was mistakenly struck twice sold for as much as £510 on eBay because it was rare.
It’s not only 50ps either, as a rare error 10p coin sold for over 1,000 times more than its face value on eBay only recently, too.
Newer versions that could be worth a mint too
You might think that old coins go for the most – but new ones can go for some big sums too.
In 2019, the Royal Mint re-released sets of five of the rarest and most popular 50ps to celebrate half a decade of the coin.
The new coins are made with old designs including Kew Gardens, Girl Guides and Scouts, but are stamped with the 2019 date which could make them super valuable among collectors.
The £90 collectors’ proof sets sold out in February 2019, but you can still get uncirculated sets for £45 directly from the Royal Mint.
An entirely new 50p coin came out in 2019 too, to celebrate Team GB.
And new coins come out all the time – a new FA Cup £2 design came out only this year.
How do I find out what my coin is worth?
If you’re lucky enough to pick up a rare coin in your spare change, it could go for hundreds of pounds depending on how rare it is.
You should check how much the coin is selling for on eBay.
Search the full name of the coin, select the “sold”; listing and then toggle the search to “highest value”;.
It will give you an idea of the amount of money that the coin is going for.
But remember, a buyer could always pull out so the coin may not have gone for the price it says it has.
And watch out for fakes too.
You can also use an online tool that gives you an estimate of how much it could be worth on eBay, as well as any other rare coins you have.
Coin Hunter gives you an estimated valuation of your coin based on the average of the most recent sales, as well as a range of how much you can expect it to fetch.
Plus Change Checker’s Scarcity Index will give you a good idea of where coins rank too.
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