Rare 50p Coins Ebay
21 January 2020, 11:11 Updated: 21 January 2020, 11:17
Rare 50p Coins Ebay Paddington Bear
The Paddington Bear coin is worth a lot of money when re-sold, so take a look if you've got one.
Finding a wide selection of rare 50 pence items is possible with our eBay listing, and you now have a simple way of making your choice. How can you recognize a real 50p coin? You can make certain that you have a 50p coin when it has seven sides that create an “equilateral heptagon.” These coins don’t exist for dates earlier than 1969. A rare error coin from the 2012 Olympics set sold for £590 on eBay last August. We've seen a similar coin listed that sold for over £10,000. Newer versions that could be worth a mint too In March.
If you've got a bunch of random coins laying around, it might be worth combing through them and finding out exactly what you have on your hands.
One 50p coin fetched its lucky owner a whopping £300, after they listed it on the online marketplace, eBay.
The rare coin, which is the Paddington Bear Tower of London 50p was first released less than a year ago, in August 2019.
It has the engraving of the beloved children's book character in front of the huge London landmark and was sold by the Royal Mint originally.
It's unknown whether the coin was brand new or not, but the picture on the eBay listing suggests it had been used as it's covered in scratches.
If the coin would've been sold in mint condition, it's likely that it would've fetched the owner a lot more money.
At £300, it sold for its asking price, despite only attracting two bids in total.
This coin was one of two which were released in August 2019, the other of which shows the bear posing in front of St Paul's Cathedral.
There's other coins that didn't go into circulation which would be worth even more to collectors in mint condition.
The Paddington Bear series of coins first started in 2018, with multiple different editions being sold of thousands of pounds on eBay months later!
Usually, around a million 50p coins are released, and so the fewer there are of an edition, the more value it'll ultimately have.
A 50p design featuring the Royal Shield of Arms, which was released two years ago, is currently the second rarest 50p coin in circulation behind the 2009 Kew Gardens.
Designs that are produced annually are sometimes overlooked in rankings of rare coins, in favour of ‘commemorative’ pieces – yet less than two million of the Royal Shield of Arms were minted in the year 2017.
Which? reveals the rarest 50p coins and how mintage influences the value of a coin.
What is the rarest 50p coin?
The 2009 Kew Gardens 50p coin remains the rarest of all coins with just 210,000 in circulation.
But if you include definitive coins – meaning those produced annually – then the second rarest 50p design is the 2017 Royal Shield of Arms.
This coin was originally designed by Matthew Dent following a public competition.
According to coin collecting site Change Checker, the Royal Shield of Arms has been issued every year since 2008 apart from 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2016.
The 2017 version is by far and away the rarest, with just 1.8 million minted, in comparison to 10.3 million in 2013, 49 million in 2014 and 39.3 million in 2015.
The third rarest coin in circulation remains the Sir Isaac Newton 50p, which has a release of just 1.8m.
The chart below shows the current rarest 50p designs based on mintage figures from the Royal Mint.
Definitive vs commemorative coins
The Royal Mint issues ‘definitive’ coins every year based on demand. The same design is produced annually, with just the year changing.
These types of coins are sometimes ignored by collectors but in cases such as the Royal Shield of Arms 2017, they can also be extremely rare.
By contrast, commemorative coins are released to mark a particular occasions, person or event, so tend to be a one-off design.
Often, these coins are first released as collector’s editions by the Royal Mint, with some versions then entering general circulation.
Special 50p have been released this year celebrating the anniversary of The Gruffalo, the famous kids’ book Peter Rabbit and the deceased British professor Stephen Hawking.
How does mintage affect a coins value?
Mintage figures can have a massive impact on the coin’s value in the market.
Generally, the harder the coin is for collectors to find, the more they are likely to pay for the coin. This can partly be determined by mintage, but also the popularity of the design.
As the 2012 Olympic coins drop out of circulation by getting lost or snatched up in collections, their value has been increasing, with the football and wrestling designs particularly popular.
Which? has looked at the average price on three recent sales on eBay for particularly rare 50p coins – the Kew Gardens 2009, the Royal Shield of Arms 2017 and the Olympic 2012 wrestling design – and the results are below:
You can see that despite the rarity of the Royal Shield of Arms coin, it doesn’t fetch a huge premium – perhaps because the design doesn’t resonate with the public in the same way.
That said, collectors are advised to treat eBay listings with caution.
Some sellers will list coins at an inflated price, or bid on their own product to make it look there’s a bigger demand.
Remember that coins are only worth whatever a buyer is willing to pay for them – even if you’ve found a rare coin, you may not be able to sell it on for a profit.
What else affects the coin’s value?
Rare 50p Coins Ebay Peter Rabbit
The value of a coin can also depend on whether a particular design is sought-after or sentimental.
Rare 50p Coins Ebay
If the coin design is more popular, people are more likely to hang onto the coin and keep it from circulation.
Also the condition of a coin and whether it is from scratches or marks can have a significant impact on its value.
However an error on a coin can have the opposite effect and make them much rarer and more sought after than ‘perfect’ versions.
Rarest 50p
Last year Which? carried out a three-month investigation into the dark side of the coin investment craze – see our video below to find out which types of coins could be worth investing in, and scams to watch out for.
- Read the full investigation: Revealed: the dark side of the coin investment craze