Megalosaurus 50p (2020)

Every Megalosaurus 50p left the Mint as a brilliant uncirculated coin, so its value depends on how well that finish has been kept. Coins were sold in the Royal Mint's own folder and in cards and sets from official distributors. One still sealed in either sells for more than a loose coin with rim knocks or scratches on the field. The colour-printed edition and the silver and gold proofs are separate issues with their own prices, so check which version you have before comparing.

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

Read the reverse: MEGALOSAURUS above the dinosaur, BUCKLAND and a date beneath it, and the small RN of Robert Nicholls. Buckland's name is the quickest check within the set, since the Iguanodon and Hylaeosaurus coins both name Mantell. The heads side shows Jody Clark's portrait of Queen Elizabeth II with the date 2020. A colour-printed edition sold by the Royal Mint shows the same design in colour.

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

• Colour edition: A colour-printed brilliant uncirculated edition sold by The Royal Mint; 27,830 were made.

The Megalosaurus 50p launched Tales of the Earth, a Royal Mint series made with the Natural History Museum, as the opening coin of the 2020 Dinosauria Collection. The collection marks Britain's part in the discovery of dinosaurs, and Megalosaurus is where that story starts. The clergyman William Buckland published the first scientific description of an animal later recognised as a dinosaur, working from pieces of jaw and bone dug up in Oxfordshire, and the year he did so is lettered on the coin beside his name. He called it Megalosaurus, meaning great lizard. Early reconstructions gave it four legs and a hippo-like stance; today it is understood as a two-legged predator, a theropod of the Middle Jurassic. Eighteen years after Buckland's paper, Richard Owen grouped it with Iguanodon and Hylaeosaurus under his new name, Dinosauria. Palaeo-artist Robert Nicholls, known for anatomically accurate reconstructions, drew the reverse with guidance from the museum's Earth Sciences Department. The animal fills the centre, with MEGALOSAURUS above it, BUCKLAND and the date below, and his initials RN. Sales opened on 13 February 2020, with the fifth portrait of Queen Elizabeth II by Jody Clark on the obverse.

It was one of the three coins in the Dinosaur set issued in 2020.