Sailing 50p (2011)

Mintage for the Sailing 50p sits in the middle of the London 2012 range, so circulated examples are common and trade on condition. Check the fine chart grid and the wave lines: when they are sharp and the fields are bright, the coin is worth more than a scuffed one. The Royal Mint also sold the design in brilliant uncirculated quality in a Sailing coin card and a coin cover, and those command more than coins taken from change.

With 1,749,500 struck for circulation, the Sailing 50p is the twentieth rarest of the 81 ranked 50p designs and has the 65th lowest mintage of all 194 circulating UK designs. That puts it in the Scarce band, for mintages 1,000,000 to 2,499,999.

The next rarer 50p is the Basketball 50p, with 1,748,000 struck, and the next more common is the Wheelchair Rugby 50p, with 1,765,500 struck.

Look for a square grid covering the upper half of the coin, with a small stretch of coastline drawn at the top right beside the logo. Below the grid the sea is shown in rows of wavy lines, and three dinghies with tall triangular sails are spread across it, the largest nearest to you. The logo carries the Olympic rings, and no varieties of the regatta design are known.

Bruce Rushin was no stranger to Royal Mint competitions. He had won the competition to design the 1997 £2 coin, and although he kept entering designs afterwards, the Sailing 50p was his next success. He picked sailing because of where he lives. On the Norfolk Broads yachts go past wherever you travel, and when he first moved to Norfolk the view from his kitchen window was of fields and sails. He does not sail himself, but he has always loved watching it. The successes of Ben Ainslie inspired him, and his research showed how small the dinghies Ainslie races really are, so that is the kind of boat he drew. Learning that the 2012 regatta would be held off Weymouth, he worked the distinctive outline of Chesil Beach and Portland Bill into the design. For the background he replaced clouds and sky with the latitude and longitude lines of a nautical chart. The three boats are set in gold, silver and bronze positions.

It was one of the 30 coins in the Olympic set issued in 2011.