Beatrix Potter 50p (2016)

Most examples are coins that have spent years in change, so the price follows condition closely. Sharp detail in the silhouette and in Peter Rabbit lifts a circulated coin, while a brilliant uncirculated example from a Royal Mint pack or the 2016 five-coin set is priced well above a worn one. Its circulation mintage sits in the middle of the Beatrix Potter series, so it draws steady demand from set collectors without the premium of the scarcer 2018 coins. The silver and gold proofs are separate collector pieces with their own prices.

With 6,900,000 struck for circulation, the Beatrix Potter 50p is the 55th rarest of the 81 ranked 50p designs and has the 123rd lowest mintage of all 194 circulating UK designs. That puts it in the Uncommon band, for mintages 2,500,000 to 9,999,999.

The next rarer 50p is the D-Day 50p, with 6,705,520 struck, and the next more common is the Christopher Ironside 50p, with 7,000,000 struck.

Turn to the tails side and look for BEATRIX POTTER across the centre, with the years of her birth and death below it. None of the other Beatrix Potter 50ps carries dates on the reverse, so those two years identify it at a glance. A silhouette of Potter sits above her name and a small Peter Rabbit below it, with leaves at either side. The heads side shows the date 2016. No varieties of this design are recorded.

The Royal Mint started its Beatrix Potter 50p series in 2016, the year of the 150th anniversary of her birth, and this was the first coin out. The four designs that followed it that year each took one of her characters, but this reverse is a tribute to the writer. Emma Noble, who designed every coin in the series, put a small silhouette of Potter at the top and set BEATRIX POTTER across the middle in an old-fashioned typeface, with the years of her birth and death on the line beneath. Peter Rabbit appears below the lettering, with foliage at both sides of the design. Noble's initials, EN, are also on the reverse. On the other side is Jody Clark's fifth portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, with the value and the year. The design was struck in cupro-nickel for circulation and was also sold as a silver proof, a gold proof and a silver proof piedfort.

It was one of the five coins in the Beatrix Potter set issued in 2016.