Peter Rabbit 50p (2017)

This was one of the most heavily struck Beatrix Potter coins, second only to Benjamin Bunny, so circulated examples are easy to come by and carry only a small premium unless they are in exceptional condition. Quality is where collectors pay more: brilliant uncirculated coins from packs, and above all the coloured silver proof and the gold proof. As a Peter Rabbit year, it is also bought by people putting together all five of his 50ps.

With 19,900,000 struck for circulation, the Peter Rabbit 50p is the 75th rarest of the 81 ranked 50p designs and has the 154th 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 Johnson's Dictionary 50p, with 17,649,000 struck, and the next more common is the Benjamin Bunny 50p, with 25,000,000 struck.

Two things set this coin apart from the other Peter Rabbit years: he is walking to the right in his jacket, and the lettering round the rim reads THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT rather than just his name. A small TM mark sits with the inscription. The 2017 date is on the heads side. Plain cupro-nickel coins are the circulation issue, while a coloured coin is a silver proof.

After the 2016 anniversary set, The Royal Mint came back in 2017 with four more Beatrix Potter 50ps, and Peter Rabbit led them off. Emma Noble moved away from the close-up she had drawn the year before and showed the whole rabbit, walking to the right in his jacket, taken from one of Potter's original drawings. The lettering changed as well. Instead of just his name, the lettering round the rim carries the full title of his book, THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT, with a small TM trademark sign, a mark that stays on every Peter Rabbit 50p from here on. Tom Kitten, Mr Jeremy Fisher and Benjamin Bunny joined him on 50ps later that year. The heads side keeps the Jody Clark portrait of the Queen, dated 2017. Collectors could also buy the design as a coloured silver proof and as a gold proof.

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