EEC Presidency and Single Market 50p (1992)

Few of these coins went into circulation, and their working life was short, because the large 50p was demonetised in 1998. Circulated coins therefore sell at a clear premium, and wear decides the gap between them: a coin with a sharp table, stars and chairs is worth more than a flattened one. Uncirculated coins from Royal Mint packs sit higher, while the proof, silver proof, silver proof piedfort and gold proof versions are valued as collector pieces. The 2009 small-size reissue is a separate coin with its own price.

With 109,000 struck for circulation, the EEC Presidency and Single Market 50p is the rarest of the 81 ranked 50p designs and has the lowest mintage of all 194 circulating UK designs. That puts it in the Very rare band, for mintages under 500,000.

No 50p design has a lower circulation mintage. The next more common is the Kew Gardens 50p, with 210,000 struck.

Look for the table seen from above, with its twelve stars, the lines linking them and the ring of chairs, one marked UK. It is the old large 30 mm size and carries two dates, 1992 and 1993, across the top of the tails side. It was the only 50p design issued for circulation in 1992, although that year's proof and uncirculated sets also held a Britannia 50p. The design was struck again in 2009 on the small coin for the 50p's fortieth anniversary; that version never circulated.

Known varieties of the EEC Presidency and Single Market 50p, all listed among the UK error coins and varieties:

• 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.

The UK held the Presidency of the Council of Ministers in the second half of 1992, and the Single European Market came into effect on 1 January 1993. The 50p marking both was the first new commemorative 50p for almost twenty years, since the EEC hands coin of 1973, and it carries both years, 1992 at the upper left and 1993 at the upper right. Mary Milner Dickens designed it, her first coin; she went on to design the 2000 Public Libraries 50p and the 2003 Suffragettes 50p. The reverse looks down on a conference table. Twelve stars sit on it, each placed where the capital city of one of the twelve member countries lies, and a network of lines joins the stars to each other and to twelve chairs around the table, showing the members working together. One chair, at the head of the table, carries the letters UK. The numeral 50 is centred at the base, PENCE runs along the lower right rim and her initials MMD sit just below the table. Raphael Maklouf's portrait of the Queen is on the heads side.