Boxing 50p (2011)

A lot of Boxing coins were struck, so worn ones from change are common and condition sets the price. Look at the outline of the gloves and the lines of the ropes behind them; the sharper they are, the more the coin is worth. The Boxing coin card and coin cover sold by the Royal Mint hold brilliant uncirculated coins, which sell for more than circulated ones, and sealed packaging adds a little more on top.

With 2,148,500 struck for circulation, the Boxing 50p is the 31st rarest of the 81 ranked 50p designs and has the 76th lowest mintage of all 194 circulating UK designs. That puts it in the Scarce band, for mintages 1,000,000 to 2,499,999.

The next rarer 50p is the Equestrian 50p, with 2,142,500 struck, and the next more common is the Boccia 50p, with 2,166,000 struck.

Boxing gloves make this one of the easiest designs in the Olympic set to recognise. Look for a pair of gloves in the centre of the coin, with the ropes of a ring corner behind them. The Games logo is at the top and the value at the bottom, while the obverse is dated 2011 beside the Queen's portrait. No varieties of the Boxing 50p are recorded.

Shane Abery only entered the London 2012 coin competition because of his children. They had seen the Blue Peter advert for the children's contest, and when he looked it up he found the Royal Mint was also running a competition for adults, so he agreed to enter as encouragement. After a couple of days the children gave up, but he kept going, and once his drawing was finished they insisted he send it in. He chose boxing because he enjoyed the sport and had boxed himself for a year or two as a boy, and he liked the idea of his name being linked to it. To him the gloves were the symbol everyone recognises, so the task was arranging them so that anyone would see boxing at once. The reverse shows a pair of gloves front and centre, inside the ropes at the corner of a ring, with the London 2012 logo above and 50 PENCE below. Abery later said that visiting the Royal Mint brought home that the coin would be a lasting legacy for his family.

It was one of the 30 coins in the Olympic set issued in 2011.