General info
How rare is my Salmon 50p?
In October 2024, the 2023 Salmon 50p knocked the Kew Gardens 50p off the top spot and became the new rarest UK 50p in circulation! With a circulating mintage of just 200,000, there are 10,000 less 2023 Salmon 50ps in circulation than the 2009 Kew Gardens 50p, which has been the rarest UK 50p for the last 15 years.
Since the news, collectors have been rushing to find one in their change, but there has been some confusion over which version of the Salmon 50p is actually rare. Let us explain the difference between the different versions and clarify which Salmon 50p is the RAREST UK 50p!
2023 New UK Coinage Sets
The first time we saw the Salmon 50p was in the New UK Coinage set for King Charles III issued in October 2023, which featured 8 brand new designs – from the 1p to the £2 – to usher in the reign of King Charles III.
Each of the new designs featured iconic British wildlife in line with His Majesty’s keen interest in wildlife conservation and plant life.
Although we’d already seen several commemorative 50p, £2 and £5 coins issued bearing His Majesty’s effigy on the obverse, this was the first time we saw his portrait feature on the 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p and £1.
As well as brand new designs on both sides, these coins also featured a special ‘Privy Mark’ on the obverse – a small crown next to His Majesty’s effigy on the obverse.
This special feature was intended to set the coins in the set apart from those you’ll find in your change once they start to enter circulation.
It’s not yet been announced how many Salmon 50ps in New UK Coinage sets were issued for collectors, but it’s not the Brilliant Uncirculated Salmon 50p with the privy mark you should be looking out for…
Circulating 2023 Salmon 50p
In November 2023, it was announced that an estimated 500,000 2023 Salmon 50ps without the privy mark had entered circulation, and collectors rushed to their local post offices and banks to try and get their hands on one. People were struggling to come across a Salmon 50p in the wild, and it became apparent why almost a year later.
On 7th October 2024, it was announced that only 200,000 2023 Salmon 50ps entered circulation the previous year – less than half of the original estimated amount! That means just ONE in 335 people in the UK could have the chance of snagging one.
In fact, in a recent poll, just 30% of people surveyed said they’d been lucky enough to find a 2023 Salmon 50p in their change!
What about the 2024 and 2025 dated Salmon 50ps?
At the beginning of each year, The Royal Mint issues an Annual Coin Set which usually includes 5 commemorative coins from the year ahead and a full set of definitive coins dated that year. The Salmon 50ps that were issued as part of the 2024 and 2025 Annual Sets will not enter circulation and don’t feature the privy mark on the obverse.
Although it’s incredibly unlikely, if you do happen to come across a 2024 or 2025 dated Salmon 50p in your change, it will have most likely been broken out of an Annual Set and spent.
So how much is my Salmon 50p worth?
It’s worth remembering that it’s the circulation 2023 Salmon 50p without the privy mark that is the rarest UK 50p due to its low mintage figure, and it’s this version which will fetch you a pretty penny on the secondary market.
Some sellers have been listing the Brilliant Uncirculated 2023 Salmon 50p WITH the privy mark on the secondary market for hefty sums, however these are likely to have been broken out of the New UK Coinage Set and will not be one of 200,000 Salmon 50ps in circulation.
Our latest eBay Tracker update revealed that a circulating 2023 Salmon 50p could fetch more than £83 on the secondary market – a 477% increase since before the mintage figure announcement!
Have you caught a Salmon 50p?
Are you one of the lucky collectors who have already caught a 2023 Salmon 50p in your change? Let us know in the comments if you have and where you found it!
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The rare penny worth £72,000!
Do you ever pay attention to the pennies in your change? Well, you might want to take a closer look at your coppers in future, because one particular 1p coin could be worth an astonishing sum!
The 1933 George V Penny is one of the rarest and most sought-after coins in British numismatic history. Despite having a face value of just 1p, this elusive coin has fetched staggering prices at auction. In 2016, an example sold for an incredible £72,000! And its value has been climbing for years – with sales recorded at £40,000 in 2004 and £45,000 in 2006.
Image credit: The Royal Mint Museum
Why is this coin so rare?
During the 1930s, there was such an abundance of pennies already in circulation that no new ones needed to be struck, however a few were still produced for ceremonial purposes. According to the Royal Mint, no official records exist confirming how many 1933 pennies were struck, but seven are known to exist.
Of the known 1933 pennies, one is located in the Royal Mint Museum, one belongs to the British Museum, two are in private collections and one was placed under the foundations the Senate House of the University of London by King George. One was placed under the foundation stone of Church of St Cross in Leeds, but was stolen in 1970 during reconstruction, its whereabouts now unknown. To avoid further thefts, the coin placed under St Mary’s Church in Leeds was dug up and sold, however it’s thought the one underneath Senate House remains in place.
Image Credit: philld / Mount St Mary’s Leeds via Wikimedia Commons
This makes the chances of finding a 1933 Penny in your change almost impossible. But don’t worry if you don’t have one in your collection, as there are plenty of other coins that could still be worth a small fortune…
Fetching a fortune
1983 2p
After the 2p coin design was changed in 1982 to read TWO PENCE instead of NEW PENCE, a few coins were mistakenly struck in 1983 using the old reverse die and therefore have the old inscription of NEW PENCE.
Image Credit: RWB Auctions
It’s not known how many of these coins made their way into circulation, but in 2024, one sold for a whopping £1,000!
Undated 20p
In 2008, the reverse of each denomination from 1p to £1 was redesigned by Matthew Dent to feature a different part of the Royal Arms Shield. The 20p had previously included the date on the reverse, but with the entire face of the coin now devoted to the new design, the Royal Mint produced a new die with the date on the obverse (Queen’s head) side.
However, when the new Royal Shield 20p coins were struck for circulation, the old die was accidentally used, meaning a batch was issued with no date on either side of the coin.
Back in 2008 when this ‘error’ was discovered, one lucky seller sold theirs for a colossal £7,100! Nowadays, an undated 20p fetches around £60 on the secondary market, which is still not a bad return on a 20p coin!
Proceed with caution
Before you get too excited, it’s important to remember that a coin’s condition plays a huge role in determining its value. Coins in perfect condition can be worth far more than their well-worn, damaged, and poor-condition counterparts, and sometimes a minor difference in grade translates to hundreds or even thousands in value!
So, next time you’re checking your change, take a closer look! Who knows? You might just discover a hidden gem worth more than you ever imagined!
Kick start your Penny collection
Whether you’ve got a penny collection already or you’re just starting out, you can piece together a fascinating timeline showing the changing face of Her Majesty with the Queen Elizabeth II Portraits Penny Collecting Page.
The scarcest coins in circulation revealed! Your Scarcity Index Update
So you think you’ve found a rare coin in your change, but how do you know how scarce it really is? Well, mintage figures only tell part of the story…
Our Scarcity Index uses data from the Change Checker Swap Centre to determine just how scarce and sought-after your coins are. The information is presented in the easy-to-use indexes below, with arrows to signify how many places up or down a coin has moved since the last Scarcity Index update.
Last time, we saw 2 new 50p coins enter the index as their mintage figures were revealed, so let’s see where they’re at now…
50p Scarcity Index
Since our last update, there’s been a lot of movement on the 50p index, with all but 8 coins moving at least 1 place.
The latest additions to the 50p index – the 2023 Salmon 50p and the 2023 Coronation 50p – remain towards the bottom of the list. Despite the 2023 Salmon 50p overtaking the Kew Gardens 50p as the rarest 50p in circulation with a mintage of just 200,000, this actually means that collectors will be less likely to want to part with it, so very few swaps have taken place.
When the Kew Gardens 50p first entered circulation, it wasn’t known just how rare it was and so collectors were happy to swap or spend it if they came across one in their change. It wasn’t until later that it was announced that only 210,000 Kew Gardens 50ps went into circulation, and this is when they began to stay put in collections.
Our Scarcity Index combines a coin’s mintage figure with how many of each design are listed as “collected” by Change Checkers on our Web App, indicating the relative ease of finding a particular coin, and the number of times a design has been requested as a swap on our Swap Centre over the previous 3 months, showing the current level of collector demand. This helps us determine the true scarcity of a coin, but it’s worth bearing in mind that the rarity still lies solely with the mintage figure. As you can see from the mintage chart below, the 2023 Salmon 50p and the 2009 Kew Gardens 50p have significantly smaller mintages than the next rarest coins, meaning they’re still the hardest to come by in the wild.
Some of the biggest movers on the 50p index are the Olympic Handball 50p which has gone up by 18 places, putting it in 6th place, the Team GB 50p which shot up by 16 places and both the Mrs Tiggy Winkle 50p and Paddington at the Tower of London 50p have climbed 13 places.
The top 8 places on the 50p index (underneath the Kew Gardens 50p) are usually reserved for Olympic 50ps, with them regularly shuffling around. However this time, it looks like the Football 50p has snuck into second place – understandable considering it’s the rarest of the Olympic 50ps with a mintage of just 1,125,500!
There’s also been significant downwards movement within the 50ps, with the Representation of the People Act 50p falling a whopping 19 places, the Olympic Basketball 50p going down 18 places and the Olympic Table Tennis 50p dropping 10 places. Also moving down the index are the Hockey 50p, the Boccia 50p and the Rowing 50p, which have all fallen 9 places.
If you’re new to collecting and want to find out more about circulation coins, you can check out our fact files here >>
Otherwise, keep reading to find out which 10ps and £2 coins you should be looking out for.
10p Scarcity Index
The 10p index has had a huge shakeup since our last update, with all but 1 coin – the S for Stonehenge 10p – moving!
The biggest change on our 10p index are the two coins that are now in last and second to last place. The U for Union Jack 10p and the X for X Marks the Spot 10p fell by 22 and 24 places respectively, putting them right at the bottom of the list, closely followed by the P for Postbox 10p which slid down 19 places.
The V for Villages 10p dropped 12 places and the O for Oak 10p moved down 17 places, all to make room for others that have been steadily shuffling up the list. Moving up the list is the R for Robin 10p which climbed 14 places to the number 2 spot and the D for Double Decker Bus 10p which rose by 9 places.
Collectors will agree that the A-Z 10ps are some of the hardest commemorative coins to come across in circulation – that’s not surprising when you consider a maximum of JUST 304,000 of each A-Z 10p design entered circulation across 2018 and 2019 and it’s thought that a large percentage of these 10ps have been snapped up by collectors.
*Note
It’s worth remembering that our Scarcity Index only ranks the 10ps against each other, so even the ones at the bottom of the list are still incredibly sought-after.
£2 Scarcity Index
Due to the fact that no new commemorative £2 coins have entered circulation since 2016, we generally see less movement on the £2 index, however there are 1 or 2 coins that have made surprising moves.
Since our last Scarcity Index Update, we’ve seen no movement in the top 2 coins on the £2 index, with the 2002 Northern Ireland Commonwealth Games £2 remaining in 1st place and the 2002 England Commonwealth Games £2 in 2nd place. The four Commonwealth Games £2 coins that were issued in 2002 are among the rarest in circulation due to their extremely low mintage, and take up two thirds of the top 6 rarest £2 coins (according to mintage figures).
The biggest mover is the Brunel Portrait £2 which has climbed an impressive 10 places, putting it in the highest position it’s been in the last 5 years!
Other notable changes are the First World War Kitchener £2 which has dropped 8 places, the Shakespeare Tragedies £2 which fell by 7 places and the Florence Nightingale £2 which shot up 6 places.
How our Scarcity Index works
In the past, collectors have relied on mintage figures alone to identify the scarcest coins. But they only tell part of the story.
That’s why we’ve combined the mintage information with two other key pieces of information:
- How many of each design are listed as “collected” by Change Checkers on our Web App, indicating the relative ease of finding a particular coin
- The number of times a design has been requested as a swap on our Swap Centre over the previous 3 months, showing the current level of collector demand.
Importantly, as new coins are released and popularity rises and falls across different designs, the Scarcity Index will be updated quarterly. This allows Change Checkers to track the relative performance of the UK’s circulation coins.
How much are my coins worth?
The Scarcity Index doesn’t necessarily equate to value, but it is certainly a good indicator. You can use our 6 point guide to help you determine a more realistic value for your coins.
What about £1 Coins?
The £1 Scarcity Index has already been published for the Round £1 coins. Because they are no longer being issued, this is now set in stone.
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