Suffragettes 50p (2003)

The Suffragettes 50p was issued for circulation and can still turn up in change, but it had a smaller circulation mintage than any other commemorative 50p of the 2000s apart from the Kew Gardens coin, so circulated coins sell above face value. Condition matters: a sharp figure, a clear chain and readable ballot lettering add to the price. Brilliant uncirculated coins from the Royal Mint pack sit higher, and the silver proof, silver proof piedfort and gold proof are valued as collector coins, the gold proof most of all.

With 3,124,030 struck for circulation, the Suffragettes 50p is the 37th rarest of the 81 ranked 50p designs and has the 84th 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 Athletics 50p, with 2,224,000 struck, and the next more common is the Archery 50p, with 3,345,500 struck.

Look for a woman standing against railings with a chain, a banner reading WSPU and a ballot paper marked with a cross. The dates 1903 and 2003 on the tails side confirm it. It is the modern small size, and the only other 50p struck for circulation in 2003 was the standard Britannia. No error versions of the Suffragettes 50p have been confirmed.

Known varieties of the Suffragettes 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.

The Women's Social and Political Union was founded in 1903 and led by Emmeline Pankhurst with her daughters Christabel and Sylvia, and from 1906 its members were widely known as the suffragettes. Their movement saw some women win the vote in 1918, and in 1928 the Equal Franchise Act gave women the same voting rights as men. For the union's centenary the Royal Mint issued a 50p by Mary Milner Dickens, her third 50p after the 1992 EC Presidency and 2000 Public Libraries designs. She showed the protest head on: a suffragette chained to railings, holding a banner lettered WSPU, with WS set above PU. To her right is a ballot paper marked with a cross and the words GIVE WOMEN THE VOTE, and to her left the value 50 PENCE. The dates 1903 and 2003 sit low on the right, beyond the ballot paper. The heads side pairs the design with Ian Rank-Broadley's portrait of the Queen.