Rare error 50p has been struck twice – but faults mean it’s sold for £510 on eBay

A RARE 50p coin has sold for an impessive £510 on eBay, but it’s all because it has a fault that means the design was struck twice.

A similarly faulty 50p sold for £550 before, so it’s not the most we’ve seen it go for, but shows that collectors will always ramp up the price to get their hands on an error.

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This coin has been struck twice on both the front and the back of the design.

So the lucky bidder who won with their £510 offer, now owns a coin with two Queen’s heads and two images of seated Britannia on the reverse.

They had a fight on their hands first though, as 19 bids were placed before the sale closed.

The listing was live for seven days, and in that time keen collectors managed to rocket the coin’s worth by 1,020 times its face value.

Bidding only started at 99p, so it was an impressive feat to raise so much interest for a coin riddled with mistakes.

What makes it an error coin?

The errors on the 50p make both sides look a bit like two coins are overlapping.

RARE COINS AND VALUABLE NOTES

Something has likely gone wrong in the minting process meaning after it was struck once, the coin hasn’t been ejected so it received another strike that it shouldn’t have.

The Royal Mint manufactures between three million and four million coins a day, so often things will go wrong.

That being said, they’ll still be produced in low numbers, making them rare and therefore in demand.

But without the design mistakes the coin would otherwise sell at its face value – just 50p – so the error part is important in making it valuable.

Usually error coins will have missing elements, like the rare commemorative WW1 £2 coin spotted months back missing the words “two pounds”, or the design printed may be misaligned as well.

We recently spotted a rare Snowman 50p too, that didn’t quite match up in parts of the design meaning some silver was poking through.

Experts will often warn of fakes though – especially when it comes to buying and selling on eBay – so you have to be careful when you’re on the hunt.

Can I make a mint from an error?

Error coins are still legal tender, so it’s likely one could fall into your hands.

But collectors are willing to pay higher prices to get their hands on anything like this, as they are so rare.

If you spot a coin that looks different to normal or is imperfect, you can check it against other listings on eBay to see how much others are selling for, or are willing to pay for a similar strike.

Usually you can determine if something is the real deal by the number of bidders who were willing to stake their claim on it.

We’ve often seen bidding wars break out on the most highly sought-after copies so it’s definitely worth checking your own change just in case.

But remember that a buyer can always pull out of the sale, which means it won’t have sold for the price that it may say it has.

Change experts like Coin Hunter or Change Checker will help you verify if it’s real too, and they can help place a value on the coin that might put some weight in your wallet.

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This post first appeared on thesun.co.uk