Gymnastics 50p (2011)

Gymnastics is neither scarce nor especially common within the Olympic set, so the coin's condition drives its price. The thin ribbon lines are the detail to check: if they are still fine and distinct, the coin is worth more than a worn one where they have merged. Brilliant uncirculated coins kept in the Royal Mint's Gymnastics coin card or coin cover are worth more than circulated ones, and more still unopened.

With 1,720,813 struck for circulation, the Gymnastics 50p is the seventeenth rarest of the 81 ranked 50p designs and has the 62nd 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 Rowing 50p, with 1,717,300 struck, and the next more common is the Table Tennis 50p, with 1,737,500 struck.

Look for a gymnast stretched in a wide split leap, holding a short stick with a long ribbon attached. The ribbon loops and spirals from the centre of the coin up to the London 2012 logo, so the upper half of the design is all curves. The value, 50 PENCE, is at the bottom, and the heads side carries the 2011 date. No varieties of the Gymnastics 50p are recorded.

Jonathan Olliffe is one of two artists with two coins in the London 2012 series, having also designed Aquatics. For Gymnastics he again picked a sport for the challenge it posed, this time how to show movement on a flat piece of metal, and he found the answer in the ribbons of rhythmic gymnastics, which he saw as a poetic sport. He built the design from pictures in books and online and from watching video of gymnasts, paying close attention to how the ribbons move and the different kinds used in competition. He brought his silversmith's experience to the work, describing it as his own way of taking part in the Games. The reverse shows a gymnast in a wide split leap, holding a stick with the ribbon attached. The ribbon winds and spirals from the middle of the coin up to the top, finishing just below the London 2012 logo with its Olympic rings, and 50 PENCE sits at the bottom. The coin entered circulation dated 2011, with Ian Rank-Broadley's portrait of the Queen on the obverse.

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