Jeremy Fisher 50p (2017)

Jeremy Fisher's circulation mintage is on the high side for the series, though well short of Benjamin Bunny or the 2017 Peter Rabbit, so circulated examples are easy to find and carry a modest premium. Grade drives the price: look for sharp detail in the mackintosh and a clean, unscratched face. A brilliant uncirculated coin still in its Royal Mint pack sells well above a worn one, while the coloured silver proof is valued as a separate collector coin.

With 9,900,000 struck for circulation, the Jeremy Fisher 50p is the 68th rarest of the 81 ranked 50p designs and has the 145th 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 Peter Rabbit 50p, with 9,700,000 struck, and the next more common is the Victoria Cross (heroic acts) 50p, with 10,000,500 struck.

He is the only frog among the Beatrix Potter 50ps, shown facing left in a mackintosh in the centre of the reverse. The name reads MR. JEREMY FISHER, with a full stop after MR, and runs round the figure. Check the heads side for the 2017 date. A coin with a coloured frog is a silver proof rather than a circulation coin, and there are no recorded varieties of this design.

Mr Jeremy Fisher was the second design in The Royal Mint's 2017 Beatrix Potter collection, the follow-up to the anniversary coins of 2016. That year's four characters were Peter Rabbit, Mr Jeremy Fisher, Tom Kitten and Benjamin Bunny, released in that order. Jeremy Fisher is the frog from The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher, a story first published in 1906. Emma Noble took him from Potter's own illustrations, facing left and dressed in the waterproof mackintosh he wears in the book, with MR. JEREMY FISHER running round him. The small en on the reverse is Noble's signature, and the heads side pairs the 2017 date with the fifth-portrait obverse by Jody Clark. The cupro-nickel version went into circulation, and a coloured silver proof version was sold to collectors.

It was one of the four coins in the Beatrix Potter set issued in 2017.