50p Coins

1. 50p Coins List
2. Rare 50 Pence Coins
3. 50p Coins Uk

The mintages of each coin vary from 1,125,500 for the Football 50p coin to 3,345,500 for the Archery 50p coin. (A complete list of the Olympics 50p coins with their mintages is in a later section.) Are the Olympic 50p coins valuable or a good investment? It depends on who you’re talking to and what you have in your hand. Rare 50p Coins are the most collected coins from general circulation in the UK by British coin collectors. Some fifty pence coins have a low mintage figure making them rare coins that are hard to find in your pocket change.

The Royal Mint has revealed the rarest 50p coins in circulation, presumably fuelling a desperate rummage down the back of the nation’s sofas.

It released the top 10 rankings ahead of the 50th anniversary of decimalisation, which comes on 15 February – the Decimal Day changeover of 1971 inspired many people to become coin collectors over the years.

Top spot is claimed by the famous Kew Gardens 50p, which was released in 2009 to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Botanic Gardens.

Its mintage of just 210,000 coins puts it well ahead of the competition, which is dominated by the Olympic-themed 50ps minted in 2011.

Olympic and Beatrix Potter 50p coins among the rarest

The rarest of the sports honoured in this collection are wrestling, football, judo and triathlon, all with fewer than 1.2 million coins minted.

Also making the top 10 are the Peter Rabbit and Flopsy Bunny 50ps from the Beatrix Potter collection of 2018.

In 2019 more than 500 million coins were released into circulation, including three new 50p designs celebrating Arthur Conon Doyle’s fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, and Paddington Bear at St Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower of London.

The Royal Mint’s director of UK currency Mark Loveridge said: “Coin collecting remains as popular as ever, and we were delighted to release a number of special designs into circulation in 2019.

“The Kew Gardens (50p) remains the most coveted coin, with a mintage of just 210,000, but it’s always exciting to find a special design in your change.”

What are the rarest 50p coins in circulation?

Here are the rarest 50p designs in circulation, with their year and their total mintage, according to the Royal Mint:

1. 2009 Kew Gardens, 210,000

2. 2011 Olympic Wrestling, 1,129,500

=3. 2011 Olympic Football, 1,161,500

=3. 2011 Olympic Judo, 1,161,500

5. 2011 Olympic Triathlon, 1,163,500

=6. 2018 Peter Rabbit, 1,400,000

=6. 2018 Flopsy Bunny, 1,400,000

8. 2011 Olympic Tennis, 1,454,000

9. 2011 Olympic Goalball, 1,615,500

10. 2011 Olympic Shooting, 1,656,500

Are the rare 50p coins valuable?

50p Coins List

The rare coins website Change Checker has a recently updated eBay tracker, which claims that some 50p coins can fetch significant sums in the secondary sale market.

This reports that the rarest 2009 Kew Gardens coin sold for an average of £156 over the auction website’s nine most recent listings, while the Olympic Football 50p fetched an average of £13.

Other 50p coins making the top 10 on Change Checker’s tracker are the 2018 Sir Isaac Newton coin and the Jemima Puddle Duck from the Beatrix Potter collection.

It should be pointed out, as the website states, the market in supposedly valuable coins “can be a bit of a minefield,” and it’s important to do your research before being taken in by viral stories of coins fetching huge sums.

Last year, for example, various reports claimed a Battle of Hastings 50p sold for £63,000 on eBay, supposedly because it was “very rare”.

This coin was launched in 2016 to commemorate the famous battle’s 950th anniversary, with as many as 6.7 million entering circulation.

Speaking to The Mirror, Alexandra Fiddons from Change Checker wasn’t able to explain exactly why the coin would sell for such a purportedly high fee, but said that sometimes “random coins” do reach surprising prices.

She pointed out that other versions of it were selling for just £2 on eBay, concluding: “We often have random coins that we don’t expect to take off that much and sometimes they just skyrocket. That could be the explanation here.”

While some coins can fetch sums comfortably above their 50p value, often it is “error coins” – versions which found their way into circulation after being minted with mistakes – which are particularly valued by collectors.

The first images of the Brexit 50p have been unveiled by Chancellor Sajid Javid, with the coin set to enter circulation on Friday, 31 January.

The coins will flood banks and stores nationwide to mark Brexit day.

Here, Which? explores whether it’s worth hanging on to a Brexit 50p coin as a collector’s item if you find it in your change.

What does the Brexit coin look like?

Images unveiled over the weekend confirm what we all expected: the coin’s design is the same as the now-infamous ’31 October 2019′ design, but with 31 January 2020 replacing the former date.

While other commemorative coins tend to depict what they are celebrating (the Paddington 50p has a picture of Paddington on it, for example), the message ‘Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations’ is not explicitly Brexit-related.

Author Philip Pullman criticised the coin’s punctuation, noting the lack of an Oxford comma after the word ‘prosperity’. An Oxford comma can be used after the penultimate item in a list of three or more items, but using one isn’t essential. Which? is not officially weighing into the debate, but our house style is not to use one in most cases.

How rare is the Brexit 50p?

Once it enters circulation, the new Brexit coin will not be rare.

Three million are scheduled to circulate on 31 January, with seven million more to follow over the rest of the year.

With 10 million in circulation, the Brexit 50p will have a higher mintage than any 2018 design. It’s possible that the last commemorative coins to have circulation figures like these were the Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny designs from 2017.

This would make the Brexit coin one of only three commemorative 50ps to receive 10 million mintage since 2015. The Royal Mint hasn’t released 2019 mintage figures yet, so we can’t be certain this is the case.

How much is the Brexit 50p coin worth?

While some coins do eventually have resale value above their face value, the Brexit 50p is technically only worth 50p. That’s 59 cents in euros.

There’s no guarantee that any collectible coin will ever be worth more than the number on its face, as multiple experts warned on the coins episode of the Which? Money Podcast:

How likely am I to find one?

Whether you’re avoiding them or seeking them, there’s no way of knowing exactly how likely you are to find a Brexit 50p in your change. Banks, post offices and shops will receive them on 31 January, so you might be more likely to find one around this time, while they’re ‘fresh’, and before people take them home.

If waiting to find one by chance doesn’t appeal to you, uncirculated versions of these coins will be available to buy from the Royal Mint website. Some 13,000 people have registered their interest online so far, but at the time of publishing it wasn’t clear when the coins would go on sale.

What are the rarest 50p coins?

The table below shows the 50ps with the lowest numbers in circulation. It’s important to remember, though, that mintage is not the only factor that affects a coin’s rarity or value as a collector’s item.

Brexit 50p timeline

Much like Brexit itself, the Brexit 50p has had a bumpy ride, facing multiple delays since it was first announced.

October 2018: Philip Hammond, then-Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced plans for a Brexit coin to be issued on the day the UK left the EU.

At the time, this was pencilled in as 29 March 2019. The coin was expected to say ‘Friendship with all nations’, and 10,000 were planned to be circulated.

March 2019: After Parliament voted to reject the government’s Brexit deal, the UK did not leave the EU and no coins were produced.

August 2019: Reports emerged that Sajid Javid, who had taken over as Chancellor, was planning to get millions of Brexit 50ps into circulation in time for the new exit date of 31 October – a huge increase on the thousands Philip Hammond had planned.

Images of this coin’s design were released to the press. It looked the same as the final design, but with the 31 October 2019 date engraved. Including this date was seen as bold, since leaving the EU on that day seemed far from certain.

October 2019: When the UK did not leave the EU on 31 October, the Royal Mint melted down millions of Brexit 50ps that had already been produced.

Rare 50 Pence Coins

January 2020: Over a year after the idea was floated, the Brexit 50p will enter circulation.

50p Coins Uk

• Find out more: more coins stories from Which?