The Kew Gardens 50p is the UK’s rarest circulation coin
The Royal Mint has announced that the Kew Gardens 50p coin is the scarcest coin in circulation today.
The result has been media hype that has seen prices for this everyday circulation coin sky-rocket. The Guardian first reported prices being paid of £24 for this 50 pence coin but since then the Daily Mirror and other media sources have identified coins selling for as much as £120 – 240 times it face value!
Even more incredibly, a Brilliant Uncirculated version of the coin in its original Royal Mint pack, which would have first sold for less than £10, was showing bids of £310 on e-Bay.
So how rare is this coin?
There are 940,000,000 50 pence coins in circulation and just 210,000 Kew Gardens 50p pieces were ever issued into circulation. That means that they account for 0.02% of the 50p coins in circulation. Or to look at it another way, there is just 1 coin for every 300 people in the UK.
It is a pretty rare coin but despite collector interest, most of the coins released are still in circulation, meaning the sharp-eyed collector can still find one for just 50p. So whilst it may be worth a sensible premium if you’re desperate to own one, prices of £100 are frankly absurd.
If I was you, I’d let the hype die down and look again in a month or two.
Read about the 50p that’s even rarer than Kew Gardens>
For more information on the coins in your pocket and change collecting visit www.changechecker.org.
Lizzy Yarnold’s gold in the Women’s Skeleton has written her name in to the annals of British Winter Olympics history.
It also sparked debate as Royal Mail confirmed that our latest gold medal winner would not receive the honour of appearing on a postage stamp or having a post box painted gold in her home town of Sevenoaks, Kent.
A one-off gesture
The first ever Gold Medal Winners stamp to be issued, featuring Helen Glover and Heather Stanning.
Although each British Gold Medal winner in both the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics received these honours, Royal Mail has insisted that the tributes were a one-off gesture intended for British gold medalists at their home games in 2012.
In a statement to Press Association Sport, it said:
“The UK hosted the Games and our athletes extraordinarily well. Because of our status as the host nation, Royal Mail chose to mark the achievement of our athletes through gold post boxes as well as stamps.
For the Winter Olympics 2014, Royal Mail will not be creating gold postboxes but we are exploring other ways of marking the achievements of our athletes, including creating a special postmark.”
What do you think?
Is Royal Mail wrong not to issue a stamp for our Gold medal winners in Sochi or paint a post box gold in their hometown – or both? Or is Royal Mail right, keeping it as a one-off gesture for London 2012? Vote below:
In the wake of the furore surrounding the brand new First World War commemorative £2 featuring Lord Kitchener, a few ideas have been mooted as to who else should be included in the five-year commemorative coin series from outbreak through to armistice.
The new Kitchener £2 has been criticised for being too jingoistic
Kitchener’s famous finger pointing at the reader and his call ‘Your Country Needs You’ has been branded by critics as jingoistic and a glorification of war rather than a reflection on the sheer loss of life which occurred.
The Royal Mint has confirmed that future designs would include other figures connected with the war, but have remained tight-lipped on who these figures will be.
35,000 Signatures
Edith Cavell is amongst the most popular suggestions, and a petition with over 35,000 in signatures has added considerable weight to the case.
An artist’s impression of what an Edith Cavell £2 coin might look like
Born as the daughter of a vicar in 1865, Edith Cavell was the wartime nurse who was executed for providing care to wounded soldiers irrespective of their nationality. She, along with Belgian and French colleagues helped over 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium. She was arrested by a German military court, found guilty of ‘assisting men to the enemy’ and despite worldwide condemnation, was shot by a German firing squad on 12 October 1915.
Patriotism is not enough…
Her last words were “I realise that patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.”
Thousands of people lined the streets for her funeral procession before she was buried at Norwich Cathedral.
Sioned-Mair Richards, the Sheffield Labour Councillor who started the petition believes Cavell was ‘simply a nurse trying to do her duty, and should be honoured by her country as a woman who was one of the best’.
Which design would you prefer to appear on this year’s £2 coin? Vote below.
