Canoeing 50p (2011)

The Canoeing coin is one of the more common London 2012 designs, so its value rests on condition. Crisp spray around the boat and clearly separated gate poles mark a coin in good order, while a flat, scuffed one from change is worth the least. Sealed examples of the Royal Mint's Canoeing coin card, and the Canoeing coin cover, are worth more than any loose coin taken from circulation.

With 2,166,500 struck for circulation, the Canoeing 50p is the 33rd rarest of the 81 ranked 50p designs and has the 78th 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 Boccia 50p, with 2,166,000 struck, and the next more common is the Aquatics 50p, with 2,179,000 struck.

Look for a single paddler in a boat surrounded by churning, splashing water, with slalom gates hanging on both sides and behind. The waves and spray around the canoe are cut in fine detail. The Olympic rings sit inside the 0 of the 2012 logo at the top, and 50 PENCE runs beneath. Turn the coin over for the 2011 date. No varieties of the Canoeing 50p are recorded.

Timothy Lees heard about the London 2012 coin competition from a colleague and, coming from a sculpture background, liked the idea of working at such a small scale. He produced a number of designs, kept the strongest, and canoeing was among them; it was also a sport he knew a little from the odd Sunday afternoon on the water, though never competitively. He began with purely visual ideas, looking for dynamic lines that crossed and worked together, and he experimented with overlapping layers so the design would suggest depth even in the very shallow relief of a coin. His real inspiration came from watching canoes race down earlier Olympic slalom courses, which he found completely dynamic, and he wanted to pack that energy into the coin. The reverse shows a canoeist paddling through rough water, with detailed splashing waves and slalom gates hanging on either side of him and behind. The London 2012 logo sits above, and the coin went into circulation dated 2011 with Ian Rank-Broadley's effigy of the Queen on the heads side.

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