A RARE 50p, that keen collectors commonly know as the Kew Gardens 50p, has sold for 500 times its face value.
The rare coin sold for £250 on online auctioning site, eBay, six days ago.
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The coin design is one of the rarest to collect, and can often be found to have sold for hundreds on the site if the right buyer is interested.
In 2009, only 210,000 of the Kew Gardens 50ps were minted.
But that low number only means coin hunters are more eager to get their own hands on a copy, and we’ve seen that factor can drive up the price of bids.
It’s also married with the fact that the design takes top spot on coin collecting expert Change Checker’s latest scarcity index, proving to be the rarest in its own 50p category.
The Kew Gardens coin tops the Royal Mint’s rarest collection too as it was third place amongst all coins in the last update.
The coin features an image of the Chinese pagoda from the popular London attraction, Kew Gardens.
It was designed to mark 250 years since tourist spot first opened.
Keen to cash in on the unique history and look of the 50p, eight bidders were interested in snatching it up.
They placed 24 bids over the three days the listing was live – it kicked off at £50 but didn’t take long to raise to over £200.
While the interest has rocketed the coin’s value well above its actual denomination in this particular instance, it’s gone for even more in the past – one bidder paid as much as £707 we found before.
One sold for exactly £370 on November 3, and another for £281 back in October too.
But the value can vary from one day to the next, most recently we saw the coin go for less, at £158.
How to spot one in your own change
If you spot a coin with a unique design in your own change, you could find yourself quids-in.
It’s not only the Kew Gardens design in demand, but a number of other commemorative style coins often go for big money too.
There is a whole collection of rare Olympic 50p coins for example that we’ve found sell over face value on eBay.
Plus rare error coins can fetch a pretty penny for their faults as well – the simple mistakes made in the minting process can sometimes rocket their value.
But you should always be cautious of fakes and some crooks may try to con you out of your money for botched copies..
Keep in mind as well that on eBay a buyer could pull out, which means the coin won’t have sold for the price it appears to have.
If you want a better idea of the coins value, compare how other rare coins have sold on eBay as a good reference, or use experts like Coin Hunter to check over your change and see how much it could be worth.
You could also get any rarities you find verified by The Royal Mint to help reassure buyers that they’re paying for the real deal – you may even be able to hike up the price a bit if you’re selling it on.
Rare coins and valuable notes – is yours worth a mint?
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