Johnson's Dictionary 50p (2005)

The Dictionary 50p was struck in large numbers for circulation, and a worn coin from change is worth face value. Because the design is all small lettering, legibility is the thing to check: a coin with every word still crisp is the best circulated example to keep. Collectors pay more for brilliant uncirculated coins in their Royal Mint cover, and more again for the silver proof, the silver proof piedfort and the gold proof.

With 17,649,000 struck for circulation, the Johnson's Dictionary 50p is the 74th rarest of the 81 ranked 50p designs and has the 153rd lowest mintage of all 194 circulating UK designs. That puts it in the Common band, for mintages 10,000,000 or more.

The next rarer 50p is the Victoria Cross (medal) 50p, with 12,087,000 struck, and the next more common is the Peter Rabbit 50p, with 19,900,000 struck.

The reverse has no picture, only a block of dictionary text, so it stands out among commemorative 50ps. Look for FIFTY spelled FI'FTY with an apostrophe, the word PENCE defined as the plural of penny and JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY at the bottom. It is the modern small size, dated 2005 on the heads side. No error versions of the Dictionary 50p have been confirmed.

Known varieties of the Johnson's Dictionary 50p, all listed among the UK error coins and varieties:

• 2009 anniversary set reissue: Struck again dated 2009, 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.

Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language was published two and a half centuries before this coin, and it became one of the most influential works of scholarship in the history of the language. Johnson was not the first to compile an English dictionary, but his was far more thorough than anything before it, and he wrote it single-handed. For the 250th anniversary in 2005 Tom Phillips produced a 50p with no picture at all. The reverse is laid out like a page of the Dictionary, reproducing Johnson's entries for the two words that make up the coin's value. The figure 50, set between two dots, heads the design. Below it comes FI'FTY, marked as an adjective and followed by its Saxon origin in square brackets, then PENCE, a noun defined as the plural of penny. At the foot runs JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY with the year of publication, and Phillips's initials TP also appear on this side. Turn the coin over and Ian Rank-Broadley's portrait of the Queen appears.