With the Royal Mint launching eight new 50p coins this year, and some coins fetching large sums on eBay, 2019 was a big year for checking your change.
Rare 50p coin sells for £202 on eBay - and there are 210,000 more out there Brilliant uncirculated coins are specially struck and handled by The Royal Mint to ensure the pristine unblemished.
Whether you’re starting a collection from scratch, or looking to add to your overflowing treasure chest, it’s important that you know what you’re looking for.
Here, we reveal the coins that proved the most valuable and rarest of 2019 and the change you should look out for next year.
Which rare coins sold for the most in 2019?
We’ve used coin site Change Checker’s ‘scarcity index’ to find the most in-demand 10p, 50p, and £2 coins of the year, and checked out how much they have sold for on eBay.
- The Judo 50p was released as part of an Olympic collection. The majority of the rare 50p coins are from the 2012 London Olympics collection, which was released by the Royal Mint during the same year.
- For numismatics (coin collection) interest. Fifty (50p) coins issued by Royal Mint, UK in various design from 1969 till date (2016). Note: All images are from Royal Mint site.
Change Checker’s ‘scarcity index’ is based on mintage figures plus how many of each design is listed as ‘collected’ by members and the number of times a design has been requested as a swap. This is meant to give an indication of the current level of collector demand.
The prices we’ve found are an average of what each of the five circulating coins most recently sold for at auction on eBay.
Collectors tend to be more interested in buying scarcer coins, often paying more for them. There are a number of factors that affect a coin’s value, however, as we’ll explain later.
The rarest and most valuable 10p coins
The Great British Coin Hunt series of 10ps was launched in 2018, along with an accompanying app.
Though the initial buzz has died down, the coins still proved popular in 2019, with collectors doing what they could to secure coins in the alphabet-based series.
The zebra crossing coin is the only 10p to remain in the top five from 2018; the others are all new entries.
All of these coins are quite scarce, with only 220,000 of each of them entering circulation. That’s only 10,000 more than the infamously scarce Kew Gardens 50p, which can sell for upwards of £100.
There’s no guarantee that the A-Z 10ps will ever sell for that much, however, and at the moment they’re considered much less valuable.
The rarest and most valuable 50p coins
Though a number of new 50p coins have been launched this year, mintage figures for these coins are not yet available, so they aren’t on the scarcity index.
The big winner is the Kew Gardens 50p. It’s still the scarcest coin ever to be circulated and can now sell for more than £100.
Only 210,000 Kew Gardens 50p coins were minted. To put that into context, every single other circulating 50p has a mintage of more than one million.
The rarest and most valuable £2 coins
Most of the in-demand £2 coins in 2019 were related to the 2002 Commonwealth Games.
How rare are 2019’s new 50p coins?
Since mintage figures haven’t been released, there’s no way to know exactly how rare any of the new coins released this year actually are.
Still, we’ve covered the launch of several new 50p coins to tell you everything you need to know about them.
Read our rare coin coverage here:
It’s worth keeping in mind that not all of these coins entered circulation, meaning they won’t turn up in your change. Instead, you’ll have to buy them online from the Royal Mint or a licensed seller, such as the Westminster Collection.
However, commemorative coins that never entered circulation tend to be less collectable and there’s evidence that they can actually fall in value.
A silver proof Stephen Hawking 50p, for example, retailed at £55 on the Royal Mint website. Six months later, one of them sold for £54 on eBay.
Peter Rabbit and Flopsy Bunny: nearly the rarest 50ps
In October this year, the Royal Mint released mintage figures for 2018 coins.
The big news was that the Peter Rabbit and Flopsy Bunny coins each had just 1.4m mintages, making them the tied second-rarest 50ps in circulation.
The 2018 Mrs Tittlemouse coin is the third most-scarce in circulation, with just 1.7m minted.
What makes a coin valuable?
There’s no guarantee any coin will ever sell at more than its monetary value. However, collectors might be willing to buy it for a number of different reasons.
1) It’s rare
Coins with lower mintages are harder to come by, meaning collectors are more likely to resort to paying for them.
The Kew Gardens 50p sells for so much because there is almost no chance of finding it in your change today. If you want one for your collection, purchasing one is the most effective way to get it.
2) It has an error
Coins with errors on them are extremely rare and hard to find, so they tend to fetch higher prices than their ‘perfect’ counterparts.
A 20p coin released into circulation without a date (it was actually minted in 2008) has proven very popular with collectors.
3) It’s part of a collection
Serious coin collectors are dedicated to completing collections. That’s partly why the A-Z 10ps and the Olympic 50ps can be valuable. If a collector has 25 out of 26 A-Z coins, they might pay a little more for the last one just for the sake of completion.
4) It’s in good condition
Even if your coin meets all of these other criteria, collectors are unlikely to shell out for it if it’s scratched or in generally poor condition.
Should you invest in rare coins?
Even though the coins we’ve mentioned above have increased in value over time, there is absolutely no guarantee that this will happen with any coin.
In fact, looking at coin sales on eBay isn’t necessarily a great way to determine value, as sellers could seek to inflate prices by creating fake listings or placing their own bids.
A series of experts warned against buying coins purely to make money on an episode of The Which? Money Podcast. They encouraged listeners to buy coins because they’re interested in them, not because they see them as an investment.
Listen to the episode below to hear how dangerous investing in rare coins could really be.
- Find out more: 50 years of 50ps – how much are they really worth?
Rare 50p List Paddington Bear
© Provided by The i The famous Kew Gardens 50p coin remains the most coveted in circulation, with a mintage of just 210,000 (Photo: PA)The Royal Mint has revealed the rarest 50p coins in circulation, presumably fuelling a desperate rummage down the back of the nation’s sofas.
Rarest 50p Coins List
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.
© Provided by The i The Kew Gardens 50p coin has long been a favourite of collectors (Photo: PA)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.”
© Provided by The i Beatrix Potter coins such as the Peter Rabbit 50p are among the rarest in circulation (Photo: PA)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
Rare 50p Coins List
10. 2011 Olympic Shooting, 1,656,500
Are the rare 50p coins valuable?
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.