The Snowman 50p (2019)

No 2019 Snowman 50p was struck for circulation, so condition is less about wear than about how the coin has been stored. A coin sealed in the Royal Mint's The Snowman and James pack commands more than a loose one or one moved into a capsule, and scuffs, fingerprints or a damaged card bring the price down. Fewer were sold than of the 2018 coin, and dealers price it a little lower. Silver and gold proof versions are sold at their own, far higher, prices.

The Snowman 50p was not issued for circulation, so it has no rarity rank.

On the 2019 coin the pair are standing still: the Snowman is behind James, who wears pyjamas, and mountains fill the background. The earlier coin shows them flying and the 2020 one shows them hugging, so the pose is the quickest check. Queen Elizabeth II is on the heads side, where the value and the date 2019 run round her portrait. There are no recorded varieties, and no coloured version was made in this year.

The second Snowman 50p, issued in 2019, turned the Christmas coin of 2018 into a yearly series. The Royal Mint credits this design to Snowman Enterprises, which owns the copyright in the Snowman images, rather than to a named artist. It moves away from the flight of the year before. Here the Snowman stands behind James, a boy in pyjamas, and the two are set in front of a mountainous landscape. Jody Clark's fifth coinage portrait of the Queen fills the obverse, and the legend around it gives the value and the date 2019. The brilliant uncirculated coin was released on 5 November 2019 in a Royal Mint pack sold as The Snowman and James, while other distributors took coins in tubes for their own cards. During December 2019 visitors to the Royal Mint Experience in Llantrisant could strike a Snowman 50p themselves. Silver proof and gold proof editions were made too.

In the Snowman set it followed The Snowman 50p of 2018 and came before The Snowman 50p of 2020.