1918 Representation of the People Act 50p: how much is it worth?

RARE coins will often pop up in people’s change, but pick out a diamond in the rough and it could earn you hundreds.

Lots of people enjoy rare coin collecting as many designs will be influenced by Britain’s rich history and more -if you’re a political history buff, you’re in luck with this one.

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The Representation of the People Act of 1918 granted the vote to women over the age of 30 who met a property qualification, plus the act gave the vote to all men over the age of 21 and servicemen over 19.

A coin, released in 2018, was designed to commemorate the centenary of the Act.

That means it’s immortalised forever on the silver pence piece.

The 50p was designed by Stephen Taylor and features five men and women in line to vote, with a woman triumphantly raising a voting card.

As it references war time in Britain, the coin will hold a lot of sentimental value for many.

But others are just keen to get their hands on a copy as it was produced in low numbers and therefore it’s rare.

rare coins and valuable notes

We take a look at exactly how rare, and how much you could get for it if you happened to sell a copy of your own.

How rare is the Representation of the People Act 50p?

There are 9,000,000 Representation of the People Act 50ps in circulation, so it’s a lot more rare than regular 50ps – of which thee are around 200 million regular 50ps are in circulation.

Change Checker’s latest scarcity index update reveals that the coin takes 43rd spot too.

It’s also got a score of just one, as well.

The scarcity index ranks each of the coins between one and 100 to indicate how hard they are to find, as well as how in demand they may be.

The higher the number, the rarer the coin and therefore it’s more likely to be more valuable than others.

This one is deemed fairly common so it could be that it won’t fetch as high a price as a lesser produced coin.

How much is the Representation of the People Act 50p worth?

You could get up to £50 for the Representation of the People Act 50p.

Various listings on eBay claim they have sold for this, but they don’t appear to have attracted many bidders each.

Instead, the most accurate listing we found of the coin actually proved it sold for a more sensible £17.

As many as 13 people had tired to get their hands on this as they kicked off a bidding war that lasted seven days.

It’s still not as much as we’ve seen other 50p coins go for before, but it is a hefty 34 times more than the face value – of 50p.

But when you’re buying and selling on eBay you have to keep in mind all the hidden charges, so when you add up sellers fees and postage, to name a few, you might only earn as much as the face value of the coin anyway.

If you do want to sell on a copy of the coin yourself, you might want to think about getting it officially verified by the change experts too.

Are other coins in my change valuable?

Commemorative coins are often very valuable to collectors.

It’s because they are usually minted in low numbers, as they’re special edition, and sentimental or important dates or people of interest can be popular too.

One of the most popular coins to collect is the Kew Gardens 50p which was released to celebrate 250 years since the London attraction opened.

There’s also a collection containing 29 different designs of each of the sports from the 2012 Olympic games that most recently visited our shores.

Coins with errors can normally gain a lot of interest too.

But it’s worth keeping in mind that there’s no hard and fast guarantee you’ll be minted by snapping one up and selling it on.

You have to keep in mind that on eBay a buyer could pull out, which means the coin won’t have sold for the price it says it has.

But if you take a look at other listings on eBay you’ll be able to determine roughly how much your own change could go for.

But beware of fakes as they’ll often show up in the crowd.

You can check your change with experts like Coin Hunter or The Royal Mint to verify if it’s real though and they’ll be able to tell you what it’s worth too.

This post first appeared on thesun.co.uk