Benjamin Britten 50p (2013)

Circulated Britten 50ps sell for a modest premium over face value: the coin was struck in smaller numbers than most everyday 50ps. Within that, condition decides the price, and the fine stave lines and small lettering are the first things to check. Brilliant uncirculated coins, especially in the souvenir pack with prints of Britten's handwritten manuscripts, sell for more than any circulated example.

With 5,300,000 struck for circulation, the Benjamin Britten 50p is the 48th rarest of the 81 ranked 50p designs and has the 111th 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 European Union 50p, with 5,043,000 struck, and the next more common is the Battle of Britain 50p, with 5,900,000 struck.

The Britten 50p has no picture. Look for lines of capital letters, with BLOW BUGLE at the top, ECHOES FLYING at the bottom and BENJAMIN BRITTEN split across the middle by COMPOSER BORN 1913, with stave lines running behind the name. There is no value on the tails side; FIFTY PENCE is on the heads side instead. It is struck on the smaller 50p introduced in 1997. The other text-only 50p by the same designer, the 2005 Johnson's Dictionary coin, shows dictionary entries rather than poetry.

Benjamin Britten was born on 22 November 1913, the feast day of St Cecilia, patron saint of music, and became a towering figure in classical music, known for the opera Peter Grimes and The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. He co-founded the Aldeburgh Festival, where many of his works were first performed. For his centenary the Royal Mint worked with the Britten-Pears Foundation on a 50p by the artist Tom Phillips, who had used lettering alone for the Johnson's Dictionary 50p eight years earlier. This time the words come from Tennyson, as Britten set them in his Serenade. Seven lines run across the coin: BLOW BUGLE, BLOW, BENJAMIN, COMPOSER BORN 1913, BRITTEN, SET THE WILD, ECHOES FLYING. The composer's name sits within a double musical stave, a reference to his skill as a pianist and conductor. Phillips's initials TP are on the reverse, and the value is carried on the heads side with Ian Rank-Broadley's portrait of the Queen.