D-Day 50p (1994)

The D-Day 50p was demonetised with the other large coins in 1998, so worn examples trade only as collector pieces. Condition drives the price: coins that still show each aircraft and landing craft clearly sell for more than worn ones where the scene has flattened. Brilliant uncirculated coins from the 1994 Royal Mint pack and the proof version sit above circulated ones, and the 2019 small reissue from the anniversary sets is priced as a different coin.

With 6,705,520 struck for circulation, the D-Day 50p is the 54th rarest of the 81 ranked 50p designs and has the 122nd 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 Battle of Hastings 50p, with 6,700,000 struck, and the next more common is the Beatrix Potter 50p, with 6,900,000 struck.

Planes above and boats below, all moving towards the left, make this one easy to recognise. It is the large 30 mm 50p, and because the tails side carries no date, check the heads side for 1994. No Britannia 50p was struck with that date, so every large 50p of 1994 is this coin. A small 50p with the same scene and a 2019 date came from the 50 Years of the 50p sets and never circulated.

Known varieties of the D-Day 50p, all listed among the UK error coins and varieties:

• 2019 small-size reissue: The design was struck again dated 2019 on the small 27.3 mm coin with the fifth portrait, for the brilliant uncirculated 50 Years of the 50p sets. Not issued for circulation.
• 2009 anniversary set reissue: Struck again dated 2009 on the small 27.3 mm coin, with Ian Rank-Broadley's portrait, for the 16-coin set issued in October 2009 to mark 40 years of the 50p, in cupro-nickel and as silver proof, gold proof and gold piedfort. Not issued for circulation.

On 6 June 1944 British, American and Commonwealth forces crossed from England to Normandy and began the assault known ever since as D-Day. For the fiftieth anniversary the Royal Mint held a design competition, won by the sculptor John Mills. It shows the invasion force as one moving mass. Seven aircraft fill the sky, trailing clouds behind them, and five landing craft cross a sea drawn in straight, linear waves, all of them heading away from the viewer towards a vanishing point on the far left of the coin. The reverse has no date, only the value 50 PENCE set at the right, level with the middle of the coin, and Mills's initials JWM beneath it. The heads side carries Raphael Maklouf's portrait of the Queen and the year. The coin was struck in the original large size and left circulation with the other large 50ps in 1998. In 2019 the design came back, reduced to the small size, in the 50 Years of the 50p sets.