Posts Tagged ‘Olympic 50p’
Do you own the rarest UK coins in circulation?
Earlier this year I made some charts about Britain’s rarest circulating coins. They proved really popular on our Facebook page, so I thought I’d bring them all together for you here in one blog post.
How many of these rare coins do you have in your collection?
There were only 485,500 Northern Ireland 2002 Commonwealth Games £2 coins minted, that’s just 0.1% of all the £2 coins ever struck to date!
The rarest £1 coin is the 2011 Edinburgh design. Could it be worth something one day?
Olympic 50ps have long been a favourite amongst collectors, but did you know there are only 1,125,500 Football fifty pence pieces? It’s definitely the rare one to look out for!
Last but definitely not least, the Kew Gardens 50p steals the show. Just 210,000 were struck and they made headlines earlier in the year when a handful reached a valuation of over £100 on eBay – surely making them some of Britain’s most valuable circulating coins (for now at least!)
So remember to keep checking your change – you just might own one of the UK’s rarest coins!
If you’ve found some of the coins mentioned in these charts, why not list them in your online collection at www.changechecker.org – you can even swap with your fellow Change Checkers to complete your collection!
This 50p just sold for £820.00
Finding a coin which is worth a small fortune is the stuff of dreams for every Change Checker. You may remember the excitement over the rarity of the Kew Gardens 50p earlier this year and the bidding frenzy that occurred on eBay shortly afterwards.
Well now there is a coin which has eclipsed the Kew Gardens, both in terms of scarcity, and the sheer scale of money changing hands.
This week, a UK 50 pence piece sold on eBay for £820. Or to put it another way, 1,640 times its face value!
It appears to be an ordinary Aquatics Olympic 50p at first glance, but this coin has a special quality which collectors desire more than anything else: an error.
And the good news is, there are more out there to be found!
The rare Aquatics Olympic 50p sold on eBay this week for £820.00
In 2011 the Aquatics Olympic 50p depicting a swimmer underwater was redesigned by the Royal Mint to make the swimmer’s face more visible. However, before the change was made, a small number of coins were struck with the original design.
The coin on the left is the rare original design, with waves passing over the swimmer’s face
The added sense of excitement and anticipation over this particular error is that nobody knows exactly how many of the original coins were ever struck.
Their rare appearance at auction (and only so far in their original packaging) along with the astronomical amounts which buyers are happy to pay, supports the theory that there are very few around.
The 29 Olympic designs are now commonplace in our day-to-day life, so this coin ultimately is just a normal 50p which you would happily pass over the counter to pay for something. Blink and you would miss that small detail which is worth so much to coin collectors.
But the Aquatics Olympic 50p error is the latest example of why you should always carefully check what’s in your change – there really could be treasure hidden in your pocket!
Do you have an Aquatics Olympic 50p?
You can add it to your collection on the Change Checker App here
The latest collecting sensation
Glasgow 2014 has been universally acclaimed as a triumph for Scotland, and although the Games may be over, their legacy lives on with a new commemorative 50p.
History repeating?
The 2014 Commonwealth Games 50p
The feeling amongst collectors is that this 50p will become one of the most highly sought-after designs for years to come. Early indications are certainly backing this up, with the coin already becoming hot property in the collecting world just days after its introduction.
It reminds me of the last 50p craze back in 2012 when the new Olympic sports designs sparked a collecting revolution. People everywhere in the UK began checking their change and hoarding these special coins as soon as they caught sight of them.
Ever since then it has been much the same story with every new commemorative issue.
On your marks, get set…
The consequence of this collecting frenzy is that commemorative coins in our pocket are now regarded as pieces of treasure and are more frequently being taken out of circulation in their thousands rather than being treated merely as a means of payment.
Coin collectors need to be quick off the mark to get their hands on the latest design. The question used to be ‘when’ will I ever find one? Increasingly it is becoming ‘if’ I will ever find one.