How rare is my £5 coin?
You may have noticed we’ve been talking about £5 coins a lot over the past few weeks and lots of collectors have been asking how rare their £5 coins are.
The £5 coin was first issued in 1990 as a replacement for the commemorative crown with a face value of 25p. They are usually reserved to commemorate significant British anniversaries and are a favourite among collectors as they are not intended for general circulation.
Using current Royal Mint figures we have put together three graphs where you can see just how rare your commemorative crown is, from the 1972 Silver Wedding Crown to the Brilliant Uncirculated Coronation £5 in 2013.
The differences in the mintage figures really are remarkable. Take a look below and see just how rare your £5 coin actually is.
The first crown ever to be issued was the 1972 Silver Wedding Coin and incidentally this is the rarest 25p UK coin from the Royal Mint with a mintage of 7,452,100. This 1972 crown was the first British coin to have a face value of 25 pence; previous crowns had been Five Shillings face value. Also, for the first time in modern times, the obverse did not incorporate a date, but merely bore the Queen’s name and titles surrounding her portrait.
The £5 coin with the lowest mintage in the history of UK £5 coins, is the circulated 2008 Prince Charles 60th Birthday £5 coin. Just 14,088 circulated quality coins were struck by the Royal Mint in 2008 to mark the 60th birthday of Prince Charles. The coins inscription ICH DIEN means ‘I serve’ and is taken from the Badge of the Prince of Wales.
* Individual Royal Mint BU Pack sales figures only
Out of the Brilliant Uncirculated £5 coins sold in individual The Royal Mint Packs, the 2014 Queen Anne £5 is the rarest. This coin has a mintage of just 12,181 and was struck to mark the 300th anniversary since the death of Queen Anne.The design bears an elegant portrait of Queen Anne, styled by Mark Richards FRBS as an eighteenth-century miniature.
How many of these £5 coins do you have in your collection? Do you own one of the rarest £5 coins? Let us know via Facebook, Twitter or leave a comment below!
The UK’s VERY FIRST Decimal Crown
I have a sealed bag of £5 coins from the post office, obviously meant for general circulation but they’re still sealed as a bag value £25
Should I keep them sealed? Will this help future valuation? Or will it not matter? Thanks
Hi does the mint release coins and then tell you a couple of years later how many were minted..? A
I have all of those coins plus others not listed eg 6 x different Olympic crowns, queen Anne & the second child royal birth, maybe a couple of others, I would need to check. Are there no mintage figures for these others? Very interesting & useful info though – thank you x
Hi Trish, we only have mintage figures up to 2013 as the later coins haven’t been released yet. We have only included commemorative £5 crowns released each year as the Olympic/ Paralympic £5 and Celebration of Britain £5 coins were released specially for the Olympic celebrations. Hope this helps. Thanks, Yasmin
I have also got all the £5 coins, and the 5shilling ones ,And have collected those from the Channel Islands, The isle of man,and the Falklands. They make up a Great collection.
I have a 1993 and a 1997 Flax £1 coin. I checked for mintage figures and there is no mention of any of these coins being made in these years. Are they error coins or are they just counterfeit?
Hi Dan, you’re right these designs weren’t struck for those years. Here is a link to our blog to help you spot fake coins. Hope this helps. http://blog.changechecker.org/2013/10/30/could-you-spot-a-fake-1-coin/
I HAVE ALL THE £5 COINS YOU MENTIONED AND THE 3 5 SHILLING ONES AND THE 25P ONE