Coins are more than just a bit of loose change in our pockets and purses – sometimes we can earn a small fortune from collecting them.
Lots of people find rare and valuable coins and sell them on to try and make a few quid so it’s worth checking what’s lying around your home.
An eBay seller in Preston listed a colourful Peter Rabbit 50p coin from the Royal Mint’s Beatrix Potter collection and got £282.77 for it.
With 30 bids, the coin with the character featuring on one side, caused a mini-bidding war on the online auction site.
On the heads side, a portrait of the late Queen Elizabeth can be seen with the date 2016 also featuring.
Peter Rabbit and Flopsy Bunny coins from the Beatrix Potter collection are known to be among the rarest 50p coins in circulation in the UK.
The Royal Mint has released many collections of coins to celebrate milestones and well-known people, franchises and more.
The Mint has released a range of 50p coins celebrating Beatrix Potter’s stories including ones that feature Flopsy Bunny, Benjamin Bunny, Tom Kitten, Jemima Puddle-Duck and more.
Rarest 50p coins in circulation in the UK
The rarest is the Kew Gardens 50p which was designed to mark the 250th anniversary of the gardens in 2009. Only 210,000 coins were ever minted with this design.
The Kew Gardens 50p sells for £156.25 on average, but one seller received over £700 for one when they sold it on eBay.
The other rarest coins stem predominantly from the 2012 Olympics, with the wrestling, football and judo coins among the most valuable. Only 1.1 million of each of these coins were produced.
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Flopsy Bunny and Peter Rabbit designs which were produced in 2018 are also highly valuable.
These coins - 1.4 million of which were minted - depict the characters from Beatrix Potter’s novels and celebrate the life of the English writer and these sell for around £5.
In 2019, 500 million coins were produced, with three new 50p designs.
These included one of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Paddington Bear at St Paul's Cathedral and the Tower of London.
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