Posts Tagged ‘UK Coins’
The UK’s brand new £5 coin is the rarest of them all!
Earlier this year, The Royal Mint released a brand new UK £5 coin that celebrates the 250th Anniversary of the founding of the Royal Academy of Arts.
The coin is available as a Silver Proof UK coin as standard, but The Royal Mint have also made another version. This version has been struck to base metal specifications and has initially been made exclusive to Change Checkers.
This brand new coin has been struck to base metal specifications and has initially been made exclusive to Change Checkers.
The reverse of this £5 has been designed by architect Sir David Chipperfield RA, and features the mid-19th century frontage of the famous Burlington House of the Royal Academy, with ornate sculptures on the roof.
What’s more, a mintage of just 12,000 has been set, making this the rarest base metal UK £5 coin ever!
The 2018 Royal Academy of Arts £5 coin becomes the rarest £5, ahead of the 2014 Queen Anne and 2011 Prince Philip £5 coins in 2nd and 3rd place, respectively.
The other £5 coins that make up the top 3 are The Queen Anne £5 coin that commemorates the 300th Anniversary of the death of Queen Anne – the first queen of Great Britain who left behind political stability and prosperity. Just 12,181 of these coins were struck in Brilliant Uncirculated presentation packs which made it the rarest UK £5 coin ever…until now!
The Prince Philip £5 coin, the third rarest with a mintage of 18,730, is extremely sought after by collectors and is virtually impossible to get hold of on the secondary market. In fact, sold listings on eBay show that the Prince Philip £5 coin regularly fetches in excess of £50!
Remember, when it comes to collecting, there is one fact which is always inevitable –the rarest coins are always in highest demand.
The Royal Academy of Arts
Founded through a personal act of King George III on 10 December 1768, The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London.
It has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects; its purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and appreciation of the visual arts through exhibitions, education and debate.
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London.
The Royal Academy does not receive financial support from the state or the Crown. Its income is from exhibitions, trust and endowment funds, receipts from its trading activities, and from the subscriptions of its Friends and corporate members.
It also gains funds by sponsorship from commercial and industrial companies, in which the Academy was one of the pioneers.
2018 UK Royal Academy of Arts BU £5
This brand new £5 has been struck to a Brilliant Uncirculated quality and has initially been made exclusively available to Change Checkers.
What’s more, an edition limit of just 12,000 has been set, making this the rarest base metal UK £5 coin ever!
£1 minting ‘error’ discovered!
In 2017, we reported on the Dual-dated £1 coin error, where the dates on the obverse and reverse were different, one reading 2016 and the other 2017.
In 2018, another £1 coin ‘error’ was discovered and this one was very interesting indeed! It would appear that a 12-sided £1 coin die had been struck on an old round £1 coin blank.
Image Credit: Zeki Atma
In the space of just 1 week, we saw 3 examples of this ‘error’ coin!
The first was from a Change Checker from Burnham-on-Sea who told us that they’d listed the coin on eBay. After receiving 22 bids, the coin sold for £205!
Another coin was sold at an auction in London on 21st February 2018. The auctioneers, ‘Timeline’, who are based in Berkeley Square, describe the coin as an “exceptional modern rarity”.
Image Credit: Coin News
Our advice to anybody who believes they have found this coin, or any other ‘error’ coins, would be to send the coin off to The Royal Mint Museum for verification.
As usual, if you’ve found one of these coins or any other interesting ‘errors’, we’d love to hear from you!
Find out more about your coins
If you’re interested in coin collecting, our Change Checker web app is completely free to use!
Introducing the new Change Checker eBay Tracker!
I am contacted many times each day by Change Checkers asking, “How much is my coin worth?”.
In truth, the value of a coin is simply what a collector is willing to pay. However, I cannot deny that certain coins do regularly command many times more than face value when sold on auction sites.
There is a lot of misinformation reported in the press regarding coin valuations. News outlets regularly report common coins being worth many thousands of pounds, simply because somebody has listed it for an extortionate amount of money.
In reality, nobody is ever going to pay thousands of pounds for a circulation Benjamin Britten 50p (despite it being a lovely coin!).
To help determine a realistic price for some of the most sought after UK circulation coins, I’m delighted to introduce the Change Checker eBay Tracker, which compares the median price paid for recent completed eBay sales for 10 of the UK’s most popular coins and banknotes.
As you may expect, with the high levels of press coverage surrounding circulating coins and banknotes, prices have generally increased over the period.
The Kew Gardens 50p will now set you back £82, £10 more than 6 months ago. The Jemima Puddle-Duck 50p has more than doubled in its selling price and the Olympic Football 50p is now regularly purchased for over £10.
The AA01 serial numbered polymer £10 banknotes are selling for £21 and it’ll be very interesting to see if this level on interest continues during the next 6 months.
How does the eBay Tracker work?
The Change Checker eBay Tracker takes the last 9 sold prices achieved on eBay and gives the median price achieved (rounded to the nearest 50p). By taking the median, rather than an average, we avoid skewing created by one or two excessive prices achieved.
Please note that the Change Checker eBay Tracker is only ever designed to be a guide as to prices achieved on eBay. Prices may vary depending on collector demand and the quality of the coin being sold. It does not provide any guarantee as to future values of coins.