Weightlifting 50p (2011)

Weightlifting had a larger circulation run than the typical London 2012 sports coin, so worn examples are plentiful and sell for a small premium. Because the design is made of thin raised lines, check that every stroke is unbroken; faint or broken lines mark a worn coin, and scratches show clearly on the wide empty field. Uncirculated coins from the Royal Mint's Weightlifting coin card or coin cover sell above circulated ones.

With 1,879,500 struck for circulation, the Weightlifting 50p is the 24th rarest of the 81 ranked 50p designs and has the 69th 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 Isaac Newton 50p, with 1,801,500 struck, and the next more common is the Cycling 50p, with 2,090,500 struck.

The lifter is drawn only in loose raised lines, like a pen sketch, with no solid body or shading. The figure crouches low across the middle of the coin with a hand on the bar, and a large round plate of the barbell sits at the upper right. Much of the coin is plain field. The logo carries the Olympic rings, and no varieties of the lifter design are on record.

Rob Shakespeare was reading a newspaper when he saw the spread of blank coins inviting entries, and he decided to have a go. Weightlifting was a natural choice. He had trained at gyms himself, and the dynamic shapes lifters make as they work through each technique had always fascinated him. He wanted to avoid the familiar image of a lifter holding a bar high overhead, which he felt everyone had already seen. Instead he chose the squat at the start of a lift, a powerful moment that works every muscle in the legs and one he saw as iconic. Not rating himself as a draughtsman, he drew only the outline of the figure to see what shape it made, and the coin keeps that approach. The reverse shows a crouching lifter, one hand on the barbell and a plate at the upper right, all in plain raised lines against an empty field.

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