John Logie Baird 50p (2021)

The John Logie Baird 50p was never released for everyday use, so its value comes from condition and presentation rather than from being found in change. The original Royal Mint pack is priced above loose coins and coins moved into capsules or other firms' display cards. Scratches, spots and a damaged pack all lower the price. Limited silver proof, silver piedfort and gold proof editions of the Baird coin are priced on their own.

The John Logie Baird 50p was not issued for circulation, so it has no rarity rank.

The mast is the key feature: a transmitter in the middle of the reverse with rings of radio waves spreading from it, and lines of text set between the rings. Look for the words TELEVISION PIONEER and dates such as 1926 and 1928 in the timeline. The obverse shows Queen Elizabeth II and the date 2021. It was sold only in collector packs and proof sets, not issued for circulation, so it seldom turns up loose.

John Logie Baird is often called the father of television. His experiments with moving images produced the first televised objects, changing both communication and entertainment. The Royal Mint marked the 75th anniversary of his death with this 50p in 2021, the third coin of its Innovation in Science series. The London design agency Osborne Ross, the partnership of Andrew Ross and Deborah Osborne, drew a television transmission mast at the centre of the coin, sending circular radio waves outwards. Between the lines of transmission they set out his career as a timeline: engineering studies in 1906, his demonstration of television in 1926, the first transatlantic transmission in 1928 and his death in 1946, along with his birth. The legend JOHN LOGIE BAIRD TELEVISION PIONEER runs on the design, the years of his birth and death flank the mast, and the initials AR DO appear too. The packaging was created with the Baird family.

It was one of the three coins in the Innovation in Science set issued in 2021.