Posts Tagged ‘50p’
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
Computer pioneer, Charles Babbage, celebrated on an Innovation in Science 50p…
Charles Babbage was an English mathematician and inventor who originated the concept of a digital programmable computer. He is even considered by some the ‘father of the computer’!
In 2021, the year marking 150 years since his passing, The Royal Mint issued a UK 50p as part of their Innovation in Science series.
2021 UK Charles Babbage 50p
The reverse of the Charles Babbage 50p was created by Nigel Tudman and Jas Bhamra, and features a design honouring Babbage’s legacy, linking his machinery to the digital age. They used a combination of traditional minting skills and modern technology to create the striking design.
The Pioneer of Computing
Boasting an impressive career in calculus, astronomy, and arithmetics , Charles Babbage held the title of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University.
The 1820s saw Babbage’s development of his ‘Difference Engine’, which was a machine that could perform mathematical calculations. Initially constructed as a six-wheeled model, it was later developed into a bigger, better, and more complex machine – Difference Engine 2.
However, his fame as a computer pioneer largely came from his invention, the Analytical Engine. It could perform any arithmetical calculation using punched cards, as well as a memory unit to store numbers – the fundamental components of today’s computers.
Babbage’s ideas were well ahead of their time, making him a perfect addition to The Royal Mint’s Innovation in Science series.
The Innovation in Science Series
This exciting series kick-started back in 2019 with the issue of the Stephen Hawking 50p.
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!
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.
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 2021, 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.
Do you have any of the Innovation in Science coins in your collection? Let us know in the comments!
NATIONAL TEAM GB 50p for 50p BALLOT ANNOUNCED!
*** UPDATE – BALLOT NOW CLOSED ***
The 2021 Team GB 50p ballot has now closed, but congratulations to our 650 lucky winners!
Despite the road to Tokyo 2020 not being easy for our Team GB athletes, their performances and dedication to their sports has be nothing short of inspirational.
The 2020 Games, amongst other things, were postponed for only the fourth time in Olympic history, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
With this, we also saw the delay of the individual release of the official Team GB 50p, issued to celebrate our incredible athletes in the upcoming sporting event.
So, to celebrate Team GB’s incredible success at this year’s Olympic Games and the release of this outstanding new 50p coin, Change Checker is incredibly excited to announce that we’re launching a National UK 50p for 50p Ballot.
Your chance to own the 2021 Team GB 50p for JUST 50p
We’re giving away 10 of these fantastic new coins at face value for every medal won by Team GB at the Tokyo Olympics!
That means 650 lucky collectors will have the chance to own this brand new coin, in Brilliant Uncirculated quality for JUST 50p.
The winners will be contacted via email on the 23rd August with details of how to claim the new 50p coin for just 50p.
Unusual Dual-Date
This coin was initially issued as part of the 2020 Annual Coin Set but with the postponement of the Olympic Games to 2021, this 50p was never individually released in 2020.
This 50p is already proving to be one of the most sought-after coins in recent years, especially after collectors have waited a whole year to get their hands on the individual issue.
Excitingly, this means that there are two versions of the coin – one with the obverse dated 2020 from the 2020 Annual Coin Set and one with the obverse dated 2021 from this year’s individual release.
Team GB 50p from 2020 Annual Coin Set 2021 Team GB 50p
What’s more, this makes the new 2021 UK Team GB 50p one of only a small handful of UK 50ps to feature a dual-date – only adding to the collectability of the new coin!