Cycling 50p (2011)

A fairly large number of Cycling coins were struck, so condition sets most of the price. A coin with the rider's wheels and the fine track lines still sharp is worth more than one worn smooth. Brilliant uncirculated coins, whether in the Royal Mint's Cycling coin card or its coin cover, are worth more than any from change, and unopened packs the most.

With 2,090,500 struck for circulation, the Cycling 50p is the 25th rarest of the 81 ranked 50p designs and has the 70th 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 Weightlifting 50p, with 1,879,500 struck, and the next more common is the Jemima Puddle-Duck 50p, with 2,100,000 struck.

The Cycling 50p puts one rider on the left of the coin, arms resting on the handlebars, with bands of straight and curved lines sweeping out behind to suggest the velodrome and speed. Check for the London 2012 logo above and 50 PENCE below, and the 2011 date on the heads side. No varieties are known for this design.

Theo Crutchley-Mack was a college art student and a keen cyclist when he entered the Royal Mint's London 2012 competition, so the choice of sport was easy: he had ridden since he was young, tried many kinds of biking and was into trials riding at the time. He treated the entry as a project, collecting all kinds of pictures, including some of himself on his own bike, pinning them up around his room and sketching from them until the final design took shape. The reverse shows a track cyclist on the left side of the coin, arms resting on the handlebars and legs in full pedalling motion, with straight and curved lines behind him standing for the velodrome track and giving a sense of speed. The London 2012 logo, with the Olympic rings in the 0, sits at the top. The coin is dated 2011 on the obverse.

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