VE Day 50p (2025)

The VE Day 50p was sold only to collectors, so packaging and condition settle its price. A coin in the Royal Mint pack is worth more than a loose one: the large open field around the dove shows every scratch, fingerprint and toning spot, so a coin handled outside its pack sells lower. The silver, piedfort and gold proofs are valued separately.

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

A large dove facing left with an olive branch in its beak fills the VE Day 50p, with IN PEACE GOODWILL curving across the top and VE DAY 8 MAY 1945 along the bottom. If you know the Peace £2 of 1995 the bird will look familiar, but that coin is a nickel-brass two-pound piece with Queen Elizabeth II, and its IN PEACE GOODWILL is on the edge, not the face. This is a seven-sided 50p with King Charles III on the obverse, and it never went into general circulation.

Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945, ended almost six years of war in Europe. For its 80th anniversary The Royal Mint went back to a design by John Mills. His dove of peace first flew on the Peace £2 of 1995, struck for the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. For this 50p the dove was remastered as a large bird facing left with an olive branch in its beak. The words IN PEACE GOODWILL, which ran around the edge of the 1995 coin, now curve across the top of the reverse, with VE DAY 8 MAY 1945 along the bottom. The phrase comes from Winston Churchill's book series The Second World War. Mills had already designed the D-Day 50p of 1994, so this coin returns his work to the fifty pence. Silver, piedfort and gold proofs were issued alongside. On the obverse is Martin Jennings' portrait of King Charles III, rather than the Queen who appeared on the 1995 coin.