Girlguiding 50p (2010)

Circulated Girlguiding 50ps are worth face value, since the coin was struck in large numbers for circulation and still turns up in change. At that level condition makes little difference. Collectors pay more for brilliant uncirculated coins, and much more for the silver proof, silver proof piedfort and gold proof versions, which were made in small numbers. The 2019 reissue from the anniversary sets is priced as a separate coin.

With 7,410,090 struck for circulation, the Girlguiding 50p is the 57th rarest of the 81 ranked 50p designs and has the 127th 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 Christopher Ironside 50p, with 7,000,000 struck, and the next more common is the Scouts 50p, with 7,710,750 struck.

Look for a cluster of seven clover-leaf badges, six around one, with the long inscription about one hundred years of Girlguiding UK running around the rim. It is the modern small size and dated 2010 on the heads side. No other 50p was struck for circulation that year, so any 2010 50p found in change is this coin. A coin with the same pattern and a 2019 date came from a collector set.

Known varieties of the Girlguiding 50p, all listed among the UK error coins and varieties:

• 2019 reissue: Struck again dated 2019 with the fifth portrait for the brilliant uncirculated 50 Years of the 50p sets. Not issued for circulation.

Girlguiding began in 1910. At a Scout rally in London the year before, Robert Baden-Powell noticed large numbers of girls joining the march, and after the publicity that followed he asked his sister Agnes to lead a section for girls, run along the lines of the Scout movement. A hundred years on, the Royal Mint marked the centenary with a 50p by Jonathan Evans and Donna Hainan. Their reverse turns the Girlguiding UK trefoil, whose three leaves stand for the threefold Guide Promise, into a repeating pattern. Six trefoils form a ring, shaped like a hexagon, around a seventh at the centre, and the inscription CELEBRATING ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF GIRLGUIDING UK runs around the edge of the coin. The value 50 PENCE and the designers' initials JE and DH are also on this side. The Queen's portrait on the heads side is the one by Ian Rank-Broadley. The design came back in 2019, dated that year, in the 50 Years of the 50p sets.