50p Coins
How Britannia struck the first Ironside 50p…live on the BBC
Jean Ironside certainly isn’t a household name, but the truth is she has been an understated part of our decimal coinage for the last 40 years. The BBC’s One Show visited her on Monday evening to explain why.
While Britain was undergoing a currency revolution in the sixties, Jean’s husband Christopher was busy designing the reverses for all the brand new decimal coins – one of which was Britannia – the female allegory who has adorned our coinage in one form or another for more than 300 years.
For Jean, this meant painstaking hours of life modelling while Christopher perfected his now famous masterpiece for our fifty pence pieces. She recalls how she improvised Britannia’s strong pose with a ruler and a piece of paper to get everything just right.
Jean replicated the famous Britannia pose for her husband using a ruler as the trident
But Britannia wasn’t Ironside’s original idea. He had designed the whole series of decimal coins before they were scrapped in 1964 by new Chancellor James Callaghan, and a competition was opened up to the general public. Unperturbed, Ironside went back to the drawing board with the help of Jean, and won the competition with his stunning and iconic portrayal of Britannia.
Now, to mark the centenary of his birth, Ironside’s original Royal Arms design for the 50p which was banished to the Royal Mint’s vaults has been revived for a new 50p which is about to enter circulation.
Live on the One Show, Jean was given the privilege of receiving the very first of five million pressed Ironside 50p coins – an experience she described as “absolutely wonderful”.
A fitting way to pay tribute to a true numismatic artist and his dutiful Britannia.
See the full show here, available for the next 7 days
Order you very own uncirculated Ironside 50p here, with free p&p!
Wanted – Britain’s most sought-after coins.
Using our Change Checker stats we have recently embarked on some number crunching to gain an accurate idea of collecting patterns – here we reveal which coins are the most requested by users.
The results may surprise you..
Olympic 50p
1. Judo
2. Football
3. Triathlon
Of the 29 Olympic 50ps which are still proving immensely popular with collectors, the most sought-after coin is Judo, closely followed by the highly publicised football 50p which explains the offside rule through a simple diagram. The triathlon design takes the bronze medal in third place.
£2
1. London Underground (Roundel)
3. London 2012 Handover to Rio
The London Underground £2 series was released at the start of the year to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the tube, and it is the iconic Roundel logo design which tops the table of most requested in the £2 category.
Not far behind is the innovative Charles Dickens £2 which was issued last year and features the author’s famous profile crafted from the titles of his most famous works. The London 2012 Handover to Rio £2 marking last year’s Olympic handover ceremony makes up the top three in the category.
50p
1. WWF
2. Girl Guides
One coin which has seemed to unite favourable public opinion is the WWF 50p issued in 2011. The design by Matthew Dent features 50 individual icons which represent the various facets of the WWF with the famous Panda at the heart of it.
The design tops the most requested by Change Checkers in the 50p category, closely followed by the Girl Guides. The UK’s entry to EEC was the first commemorative design of the newly sized 50ps, and this is currently the third most requested.
£1
1. London
2. Belfast
3. Cardiff
£1 coins often go unnoticed as commemorative issues, but there are four different series of £1 designs which have been in circulation for nearly 30 years. They all carry the same concept of representing each of the four constituent countries in the UK through various themes.
There was an obvious trend in the Change Checker results with the Capital Cities series making up the entire top 3 with London the most requested, followed by Belfast and Cardiff.
Have you got any of these coins available to swap? Maybe even all four in our wanted poster? If so you’ll be a very popular person in the Change Checker Swap Centre.
New Benjamin Britten 50p set to strike a chord with Change Checkers
The new Benjamin Britten 50p is not likely to be seen in your change until 2014
The Royal Mint’s latest 50p coin is certain to “strike a chord” with Change Checkers.
That’s because it celebrates the centenary of the birth of one of the UK’s most prominent classical composers – Sir Benjamin Britten.
Born in Suffolk on 22 November 1913, Britten studied at the Royal School of Music before going on to write some of the 20th Century’s best known opera, choral and classical pieces, including Peter Grimes (1945), a Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (1945) and the War Requiem (1962).
The new 50p design has been created by another composer and artist, Tom Phillips CBE, RA. Commenting on his design Phillips says: “What I wanted the coin to speak of was music. Thus the stave soon entered the design… and his name married well with the stave. The natural accompaniment with Britten’s passion for poetry as our preeminent composer of opera and song, was some kind of key quotation. The words which eventually suggested themselves, come from the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings. What better clarion call for a musical anniversary could there be than “Blow, bugle, blow: set the wild echoes flying?”
Sadly though Change Checkers will have to wait several months until you can hope to see the new Benjamin Britten coin in general circulation.