D-Day 80th Anniversary 50p (2024)

The 2024 D-Day 50p exists only in collector formats, so what you have and how well it has been kept decide its price. The Royal Mint pack sells for more than a loose coin or one moved into a capsule, and a scuffed pack or marked surface pulls the price down. The two-coin set with the 1944 farthing had an issue limit and is valued as a set, not as a single coin. Silver, piedfort and gold proofs are priced separately again.

The D-Day 80th Anniversary 50p was not issued for circulation, so it has no rarity rank.

Troops leaving a landing craft, planes overhead and the row of beach names UTAH OMAHA GOLD JUNO SWORD along the bottom identify this coin at once. D-DAY is spelled out across the top, with 6 JUNE 1944 running down the right-hand side. Do not confuse it with the 1994 D-Day 50p: that one is the larger old-size coin with Queen Elizabeth II, and its scene shows ships and aircraft heading away across the sea, with no beach names. The 2024 coin is the current small size with King Charles III and was not issued for circulation.

On 6 June 1944 Allied troops and paratroopers landed on five assault beaches on the Normandy coast. The foothold they won opened a second front against Germany and began the liberation of occupied France. For the 80th anniversary The Royal Mint produced this 50p with the help of Imperial War Museums. David Lawrence designed the reverse. Soldiers with rifles charge down the ramp of a landing craft onto the beach, while aircraft cross the sky at the upper right. D-DAY runs across the top with 6 JUNE 1944 down the right-hand side, and the codenames of the five beaches, UTAH, OMAHA, GOLD, JUNO and SWORD, run along the bottom edge. Lawrence's initials DL are also on the reverse. Besides the standard pack, it came in a two-coin set with a farthing dated 1944 and in silver, piedfort and gold proofs. The obverse shows King Charles III, from the portrait by Martin Jennings.