Posts Tagged ‘Collectable’
UPDATE: How rare is my coin? The complete Change Checker guide to UK coin mintages
In 2016, we took a look at the mintage figures of all 50p, £1 and £2 coins that have been released. As always, ‘The Change Checker guide to UK coin mintages’ is THE place to check how rare your coins are! Here are the charts listing each coin in order of its rarity.
The Kew Gardens 50p coin remains top of the chart and doesn’t look as though it’ll be shifted any time soon!
Due to the high number of commemorative designs, no definitive design 50p coins were struck for circulation in 2016. Of those commemorative designs, the Beatrix Potter Peter Rabbit 50p has the highest mintage with 9.6 million pieces. However, some collectors may struggle to complete their Beatrix Potter set as it’s been revealed that only 2.1 million Jemima Puddle-Duck 50p coins were struck, making it the second most scarce commemorative 50p design (excluding the Olympic 50p series)! Squirrel Nutkin has also made it into the top 10 rare 50ps with a mintage of 5 million.
2016 was the first year since 1983 that no round £1 coins were struck for circulation due to the release of the new 12-sided £1 coin, as a result, this chart is now set in stone and the 2011 Edinburgh coin will remain the target for all round £1 coin collectors. But they’ll have to act quickly – along with the other round £1 coins it will disappear from circulation forever on 15th October.
The 2002 Commonwealth Games Northern Ireland £2 still remains the only £2 coin to have a mintage of less that 500,000, placing it firmly at the top of the chart.
From the 2016 designs, the First World War Army £2 coin has a very high mintage figure with over 9.5million pieces being struck, making it the second most common commemorative £2 coin ever.
Interestingly, the three Shakespeare £2 coins, ‘Comedies‘, ‘Histories‘ and ‘Tragedies‘ each have a different mintage figure. Over 1.3 million fewer ‘Comedies’ coins were struck than ‘tragedies’, likely having an impact on collectability in the future.
You’ll notice that the Britannia £2 coin isn’t listed, this is because it is a definitive design, however the mintage increased to just over 3.5 million.
It will be very interesting to see how these coins fare in our updated Scarcity Indexes which will be released in July, so keep your eyes peeled for any changes.
And keep hold of your coins – you never know what they might be worth in the future! Remember you can Find, Collect and Swap all your coins for FREE with the Change Checker App: http://www.changechecker.org
Are the Beatrix Potter coins destined to be the scarcest 50ps ever?
There is no doubt that the Beatrix Potter 50ps have caused much excitement across the UK and we can see why they’re so popular.
Collectors all over the country are checking their change right now in an attempt to find the Peter Rabbit 50p coin and are sure to do the same when the other coins in the series are released into circulation.
Ebay listing shows 2 x Circulated Peter Rabbit 50ps sold for £31 + P&P
But the more collectors hoard these coins, the less likely you are to find one in circulation – some are selling online for 40 times their face value!
What makes these 50p coins so special?
The unique theme of this collection has been the key to its undeniable success.
Struck by The Royal Mint, this series of Beatrix Potter 50ps celebrate the 150th anniversary of her birth. Designed by Emma Noble, these coins celebrate Beatrix Potter as the artist behind some of the best-loved characters in children’s literature as well as some of the animals from her children’s tales.
Will these 50ps disappear from circulation completely?
As the rest of the collection unfolds we will welcome three more familiar faces, Jemima-Puddle-Duck, Squirrel Nutkin and Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, who will appear on UK coins later in the year to complete this five piece series.
As the coins are so popular, we predict it won’t be long until they completely disappear from circulation.
We think every coin in the Beatrix Potter fifty pence series will be snapped up and will stay safely tucked away in the collections of Change Checkers all over the UK.
So if you do find one, make sure you keep it safe – a 50p Collecting revolution could be about to start!
Claim a FREE Mrs Tiggy-Winkle 50p with the Change Checker Collecting Pack