Team GB 50p (2016)

Most Team GB 50ps on the market came out of circulation, so condition sets the price: crisp detail on the swimmer, the rings and the lion logo is what buyers look for. Uncirculated coins taken straight from bags sell for more than worn ones, while the Royal Mint's brilliant uncirculated pack is priced well above anything from change.

With 6,400,000 struck for circulation, the Team GB 50p is the 51st rarest of the 81 ranked 50p designs and has the 119th 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 Paddington at the Palace 50p, with 5,901,000 struck, and the next more common is the Commonwealth Games Glasgow 50p, with 6,500,000 struck.

Look for a swimmer doing butterfly under the Team GB lion and the Olympic rings, with TEAM GB on the coin and a small U. The 2011 Olympic Aquatics 50p also shows a swimmer, but it carries the London 2012 logo rather than the Team GB lion. Check the heads side for 2016 and Jody Clark's portrait of the Queen. The later Team GB 50ps for Tokyo and Paris were not issued for circulation, so a Team GB 50p found in change will be this one.

The Royal Mint struck this 50p to back Great Britain's athletes at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics of 2016, four years after London had hosted the Games in 2012. The Royal Mint credits the design to Tim Sharp, who worked on it with the design consultancy Uniform, the source of the small letter U on the reverse. The design is built from the team's own branding: the Team GB logo, with its lion's head, and the Olympic rings sit above a swimmer caught mid-stroke doing the butterfly. The lettering TEAM GB completes the reverse. It was struck for general circulation, with the Queen's fifth coinage portrait by Jody Clark on the obverse, and was also sold to collectors in brilliant uncirculated packs. It is a separate issue from the 2011 Olympic sports 50ps, which belonged to the London 2012 series, and it began a line of Team GB 50ps that continued for Tokyo and Paris.

The Team GB set began with it, and the Team GB (Tokyo 2020) 50p followed in 2020.