Squirrel Nutkin 50p (2016)

Squirrel Nutkin had the second-lowest circulation mintage of the 2016 Beatrix Potter coins, after Jemima Puddle-Duck, which gives circulated coins a small edge over the more common designs of that year. A circulated coin with crisp detail on the squirrel is worth more than a flattened one. Uncirculated coins from Royal Mint packs sell for noticeably more than those from change, and the coloured silver proof has its own collector price.

With 5,000,000 struck for circulation, the Squirrel Nutkin 50p is the joint 41st rarest of the 81 ranked 50p designs and has the joint 98th lowest mintage of all 194 circulating UK designs. That puts it in the Uncommon band, for mintages 2,500,000 to 9,999,999.

The next rarer 50p is The Tailor of Gloucester 50p, with 3,900,000 struck, and the next more common is the Platinum Jubilee 50p, with 5,000,070 struck.

Squirrel Nutkin is the only squirrel in the Beatrix Potter 50ps, shown in a lively pose in the centre with SQUIRREL NUTKIN running round the edge and broken by his figure. Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddle-Duck from the same year share that layout, so the animal and the name are what to check. The year 2016 is on the heads side. Coloured versions are silver proofs rather than circulation coins, and no varieties are recorded.

Squirrel Nutkin was one of four Potter characters to get a 50p in 2016, the year of Potter's 150th birthday, and he joined Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle-Duck and Mrs Tiggy-Winkle in that year's set. He comes from The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, published in 1903, a story in which the red squirrel escapes from an owl called Old Brown. Emma Noble drew Nutkin from Potter's illustrations in a lively pose. He is placed in the centre of the coin and breaks the words SQUIRREL NUTKIN, which run round the rim, and Noble's initials en appear on the same face. The Queen's portrait by Jody Clark is on the heads side, with the year and value. Alongside the cupro-nickel coin for circulation, the design was sold as a coloured silver proof.

It was one of the five coins in the Beatrix Potter set issued in 2016.