Taekwondo 50p (2011)

Taekwondo coins were struck in lower numbers than most London 2012 designs, though not low enough to count among the scarcest. That keeps circulated coins a little above the common sports, with condition deciding where each one lands. Look at the helmets and the kicking legs for flattening, and at the fields around them for scratches. Coins from the Royal Mint's brilliant uncirculated Taekwondo coin card or coin cover sell for more, particularly when sealed.

With 1,664,000 struck for circulation, the Taekwondo 50p is the twelfth rarest of the 81 ranked 50p designs and has the 55th 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 Shooting 50p, with 1,656,500 struck, and the next more common is the Handball 50p, with 1,676,500 struck.

Two figures in helmets fill the coin. The larger one, seen from behind, swings a leg high towards the upper left in a turning kick, while a second athlete lower down on the left throws a side kick. Their protective gear stands out in relief. The Olympic rings logo is at the top, with 50 PENCE running along the bottom edge, and no varieties are known.

David Gibbons found the competition by chance. He was on the Royal Mint website buying coins to mark his granddaughter's birth when he spotted it, and it connected with design work he had done in the past. He entered five sports and chose taekwondo and triathlon deliberately, because they were less familiar and harder to illustrate. He had never practised taekwondo; for him it was purely a design exercise. Mapping out the figures, he found that once the logo and the value pinched the top and bottom of the heptagon, the space left was a kind of stretched dog's bone that demanded an asymmetrical design. A single figure with flailing arms and legs did not work, but overnight the idea came to him of adding a second athlete in the distance. He then went to watch a local taekwondo group train so the helmets and kit would be right, and adjusted one costume after early feedback from the Royal Mint's committee.

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