IT might be worth checking next time you stash a handful of coins away in your purse or wallet as some can be worth a pretty penny.
The Royal Mint every so often releases rare coins into circulation that collectors are willing to pay much more than face value for.
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And some can go for over £130, so it’s well worth digging around to see if you’ve got any.
The 1997 50p is one such coin – it was released in 1997 and was designed by Raphael Maklouf and Christopher Ironside.
Website Checkyourchange says there are around 456million of the coins in circulation.
It’s ranked one out of 10 on the website’s scarcity index which means it’s usually readily available at or very near to face value.
Even so, we’ve found one that fetched for more than £14 online.
How much is the 1997 50p coin worth?
Ebay is one website where you can pick up rare and vintage coins.
It’s always worth looking around for the best deals, and usually if multiple people have bid on one coin it’s more likely that it actually sold.
We found a 1997 50p coin on the website that had five bids and sold for £14.64 on November 21.
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That’s more than 29 times its face value.
How to check if your small change is worth anything
The biggest sign your coin might be worth a lot of money is if it has a low mintage figure.
This relates to how many of that coin was produced.
Generally, the fewer coins that were produced, the more it’s likely to sell for more than their face value on eBay.
You can check how much the coin is selling for on eBay, by searching the full name of the coin, selecting the “sold” listing and then toggle the search to “highest value”.
It will give you a rough idea of the amount that coin is selling for.
But remember, coins are only really worth what someone is willing to pay for them.
Sometimes collectors might fork out more if they’re desperate to finish a set.
Other times, you might get significantly less for the same coin.
You can either choose to sell the coin on eBay or through a specialist like Changechecker.
