Posts Tagged ‘mintage 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