50 Years of the 50p (2019)

It was sold only in brilliant uncirculated packs and sets, so every example is a collector piece and there is no price for a coin from change. What moves the value is the condition of the coin and its packaging: one still sealed in its original Royal Mint pack or capsule, free of marks and fingerprints, is worth more than a loose coin that has been handled.

The 50 Years of the 50p was not issued for circulation, so it has no rarity rank.

Britannia with NEW PENCE on a coin with a modern portrait is the giveaway. The original NEW PENCE coins, dated 1969 to 1981, carry Arnold Machin's earlier portrait, while this one pairs Ironside's Britannia with Jody Clark's fifth portrait and the date 2019. The letters A to G at the seven corners, the arcs linking them and the small Spirograph-style mint mark also set it apart. It was never issued for circulation, so every example comes from a pack or set.

The first 50p entered circulation in October 1969, ahead of the switch to decimal currency, and nothing like its shape had been used before. Hugh Conway and his team had been asked for a coin that people could tell apart by touch and by sight but that would still roll smoothly, and the equilateral-curve heptagon was their answer. Fifty years on, The Royal Mint paid tribute to that piece of engineering with a coin that reuses Christopher Ironside's Britannia: seated beside a lion, a shield at her right side, a trident in one hand and an olive branch in the other. It even restores the words NEW PENCE, missing from the 50p since 1981. Around the rim, the letters A to G mark the seven points of the coin and are joined by arced crossing lines that show how the shape is built. A special Spirograph-style mint mark, drawn from an extension of the lines that form the outline, also appears. The heads side carries Jody Clark's fifth portrait of Queen Elizabeth II.