Posts Tagged ‘50p Coin’
£5 coin commemorates the life and legacy of Mahatma Gandhi
In the year marking the 90th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s final visit to London, The Royal Mint have issued a BRAND NEW £5 coin.
2021 UK Gandhi £5
In celebration of such an important historical figure, this BRAND NEW £5 coin features a reverse design by Heena Glover with a lotus flower at its centre and one of Gandhi’s most famous quotes – ‘My life is my message’.
The name Mahatma Gandhi also features around the outside. Mahatma, meaning ‘great soul’, was the name given to Gandhi by his followers.
Struck to a superior Brilliant Uncirculated finish and protectively encapsulated in Official Change Checker packaging to certified its superior quality, you can now own the Gandhi £5 for JUST £10.99 (+p&p).
To secure yours today, simply click here >>
An advocate for peace
Mahatma Gandhi is most well known for leading the successful campaign for India’s independence, using nonviolent resistance which inspired human rights movements across the world.
He is recognised as an exceptional human being who has been a powerful advocate of peace and has inspired generations with his belief in truth and non-violence.
Credit: http://rena.wao.com/gandhi/jpg/MG26.jpg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
With strong ties to London after his attendance at University College of London law school in 1888, Gandhi’s visits to the UK continued for over 50 years. In his final visit to London in 1931, he stood as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress at the Second Round Table Conference on the Indian constitution.
Credit: Spudgun67, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
During this conference, Gandhi discussed constitutional reform in India with British politicians. While in London he stayed at the community centre, Kingsley Hall in Bow, where he is now commemorated with a blue plaque.
It’s great to see such an important historical figure celebrated on our UK coinage. Who else would you like to see commemorated on a coin?
Secure the brand new 2021 UK Gandhi £5 for your collection!
Struck to a superior Brilliant Uncirculated finish and protectively encapsulated in Official Change Checker packaging to certified its superior quality, you can now own the Gandhi £5 for JUST £10.99 (+p&p).
Latest 50p in the Innovation in Science series celebrates century of ground-breaking Insulin discovery
The UK’s Innovation in Science 50p Series continued with the 2021 UK Discovery of Insulin 50p – commemorating 100 years since this ground breaking finding!
Saving millions of lives around the world and triggering a century of diabetes research, the discovery of Insulin in 1921 by Sir Frederick G Banting, Charles H Best and JJR Macleod was one of the greatest medical breakthroughs in history.
2021 UK Discovery of Insulin 50p
In the discovery’s centenary year, the life-changing hormone featured on the UK 50p for the first time.
The design, by Iris De La Torre, features an artistic interpretation of the structure of Insulin along with its molecular formula.
Whilst this was the first UK coin to celebrate the discovery of Insulin, The Royal Canadian Mint also issued a special collector’s set in 2021 to celebrate the historic anniversary…
2021 Canada Discovery of Insulin Collector Card
Whilst 2021 marked 100 years since Sir Frederick G Banting, Charles H Best and JJR Macleod first discovered Insulin at the University of Toronto, it was later purified by James B Collip.
To celebrate this historic anniversary and one of Canada’s most significant contributions to modern medicine, The Royal Canadian Mint issued a special collector’s set.
Included within this set you’ll find two versions of the 2021 Discovery of Insulin $2, with a design portraying the story from laboratory to the isolation of insulin.
As well as the two Discovery of Insulin $2 coins, the set also includes five other denominations issued in 2021, perfectly displayed within the colourful collector card explaining the importance of this Canadian medical breakthrough that changed the world.
Just 100,000 sets were issued for collectors worldwide.
The Discovery of Insulin 50p was the very latest addition to The Royal Mint’s Innovation in Science series which has proven incredibly popular with collectors…
2021 UK Charles Babbage 50p
Charles Babbage was an English mathematician and inventor who originated the concept of a digital programmable computer.
In 2021, in the year marking the 150th year of his passing, The Royal Mint commemorated him on a UK 50p – an addition in their Innovation in Science series.
This 50p, designed by Nigel Tudman and Jas Bhamra, features a clever design which links Babbage’s extraordinary machinery to the digital age.
2021 John Logie Baird 50p
It’s hard to imagine life without television but back in the early 1920s, it was a complete unknown.
That was until John Logie Baird successfully produced televised objects in outline in 1924, transmitted recognisable human faces in 1925, and demonstrated the televising of moving objects in 1926.
Issued in 20201, to celebrate the life and works of the ‘Father of Television’, the design of this 50p coin features key milestones from Baird’s life, presented between the lines of transmission radiating from the centre of the coin.
2020 Rosalind Franklin 50p
In the year that would have marked her 100th birthday, The Royal Mint released a 50p celebrating the life and crucial work of Rosalind Franklin, the first female scientist to be commemorated on a UK coin.
David Knapton’s striking design of this coin, features a depiction of Rosalind Franklin’s X-ray, ‘Photograph 51’, which revealed the helical structure of DNA, in her laboratory at King’s College, London.
One of Britain’s greatest scientists, Franklin made a crucial finding to the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA.
2019 Stephen Hawking 50p
In 2019, less than a year since his death, The Royal Mint released a Stephen Hawking 50p coin, honouring his works as one of the most influential physicists of the modern age.
He became the very first person to be celebrated in The Royal Mint’s Innovators in Science series and only the third person to be commemorated on a coin within a year of their death (the others being Winston Churchill and the Queen Mother!)
The reverse of the coin, designed by Edwina Ellis, features a stylised black hole and the inscription ‘Stephen Hawking’ . It also shows the Bekenstein-Hawking formula, which describes the thermodynamic entropy of a black hole.
Rarest UK Coins Revealed! 2020 Mintage Figure Update
One of the biggest numismatic updates of the year comes when the latest mintage figures are announced and today we are very excited to share the updated figures for 2020 circulation coins, which have just been revealed by The Royal Mint!
As the UK’s most collected coin, it’s great to hear that three 50p designs were released into circulation last year. These include the Withdrawal from the European Union 50p, the Diversity Built Britain 50p and this year’s Royal Shield 50p.
We’ve updated the Change Checker 50p Mintage Chart with these new additions to show you which 50ps you should be looking out for:
The rarest of the trio to be released is the Withdrawal from the EU 50p, commonly known as the Brexit 50p, with a circulating mintage of 10,001,000. This is closely followed by the Diversity Built Britain 50p with a mintage of 10,300,000.
These numbers are fairly high for commemorative coins, meaning collectors stand a good chance of finding these ones in their change. What’s more, at 46,540,375 coins in circulation, we expect many collectors to be able to find the 2020 definitive Royal Shield design – just make sure you keep checking the dates on the reverse of your 50ps!
Are you lucky enough to have these in your collection? Let us know in the comments below!
The Royal Mint’s Director of UK Currency, Mark Loveridge, said: “As the original maker of UK coins, we are delighted to play our part in celebrating the story of the nation. In 2020 two important new designs were issued on fifty pences, commemorating British diversity and the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union. Coin collecting remains a popular hobby in the UK, and finding a special design in your change adds to the excitement.”
What about the Olympic 50ps?
In 2012, the release of the Olympic 50p series kick started a collecting frenzy across the nation.
It’s estimated that around 75% of these coins have been removed from circulation by collectors which means they are incredibly sought-after, especially considering these 50ps have some of the lowest mintage figures in circulation…
Many of the Olympic 50ps have a mintage less than 2,000,000 with the rarest (the Olympic Football 50p) having a mintage of just 1,125,500. See the full mintage figures for these coins here.
Taking these rare 50ps into consideration, the 2018 Peter Rabbit and Flopsy Bunny coins would sit in joint sixth position, below the Kew Gardens, Football, Wrestling, Judo and Triathlon 50ps.
£2 Coin Update
As well as updating the 50p mintage figures, The Royal Mint also revealed that no £2 coins were issued into circulation in 2020.
There have been no new £2 coins issued into circulation since 2016, which may in part be due to the introduction of the new 12-sided £1 coin in 2017.
It was recently confirmed that The Royal Mint has no plans to strike any £2 coins for circulation for the next 10 years, so unfortunately, there may not be any mintage updates for this denomination for a while.
Whilst 88,071,910 1p coins were released in 2020, no 2p coins have entered circulation since 2018, perhaps suggesting it’s time we question what the future has in store for our beloved coppers.
Have you been lucky enough to find any of these coins in your change? It’s always exciting when new mintage figures are revealed and your realise just how rare the change in your pocket really is!
We’ll be updating the Change Checker Scarcity Index this month and it will be exciting to see how these new figures impact the index.
If you’re interested in coin collecting, our Change Checker web app is completely free to use and allows users to:
– Find and identify the coins in their pocket
– Collect and track the coins they have
– Swap their spare coins with other Change Checkers
Sign up today at: www.changechecker.org/app