BIDDERS battle it out on eBay for rare coins, just like Olympians battle it out for medals on the field – and they’ll often set their sights on the rare Olympic swimmer 50p.
The rare coin features an image of a swimmer slicing through the water on its reverse.
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It’s more formally known as the Aquatics 50p though.
The coin was minted in 2011, along with 28 other designs that each featured a sport played at the 2012 Olympics.
The games were hosted in London that year so the coin collection came out to celebrate the piece of British sporting history.
But how rare is this particular entry in the line-up? We explore how many were minted, and how much the 50p could be worth.
How rare is the Olympic Swimmer 50p?
There are 2,179,000 Olympic swimmer 50ps in circulation according to Change Checker.
RARE COINS AND VALUABLE NOTES
In comparison, there’s around 200 million regular 50ps, so the rare design only makes up around one hundredth of that size.
On Change Checker’s latest scarcity index update the coin sits in 32nd place – but there are at least 21 of the other Olympic 50ps in front of it.
It has got a score of 20 which makes it “less common” though.
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 this can make it more valuable too.
The 50p gained two more points since the last update back in November, but it’s a long way off some of the top scorers like the Kew Gardens 50p, which has 100 points in contrast.
The second rarest 50p on the scarcity scale is the Olympic Triathlon 50p, which also puts its Aquatics counterpart to shame with 89 points of its own.
How much is the Olympic Swimmer 50p worth?
On eBay one seller managed to make as much as £13 on their copy of the coin.
It’s not quite the same as the hundreds that others have made on rarer coins in the past, but it is a lot more than face value – so you could profit from a copy of your own.
The copy that sold on the online auction site on January 30 went for 26 times its face value in the end.
Meanwhile another seller made £6.50 from the coin – a little less, even though they had the original collectors’ card to go with it.
Some sellers who have the complete set of all 29 Olympic coins have managed to sell them as a job lot for up to £37 though, so it can be worth building up a collection.
Can it be worth even more?
The most eagle-eyed coin collectors will know that it can.
There’s actually another version of the Olympic swimmer coin that’s even rarer – and copies of this one will often sell for hundreds of pounds on eBay.
It’s an early version of the Olympic design, which means it has more lines printed across the swimmers face than the final official copy that was released.
The Royal Mint decided the design was too unclear before it made the final cut, but by this point a handful had already made their way into the trading circuit.
Only around 600 of the error versions are thought to be in circulation compared to the over 2,000,000 official versions in circulation.
One sold for £245 on eBay in the summer last year.
Another sold for £443 in October, and a third had sold for £510 just a few days earlier – but they both sported the same error design.
How rare are other 50ps in my change?
We already know this coin is part of a 29 piece set – so there’s at least 28 other designs out there that are similar in value, as they were issued at the same time in roughly the same numbers.
But if you spot a different unique design on the 50ps in your change, you could find it’s just as valuable – and make a lot of money from it.
That being said, a coin is only worth what someone is willing to bid on it.
Look for designs with a low mintage, as these will be more valuable to collectors as they are harder to get their hands on.
You can check in with experts like Coin Hunter, Change Checker, or The Royal Mint to see what your change is worth.
Then try selling it on eBay – other listings on eBay will help you to see how much you could get too.
But beware of fakes – and keep in mind that a buyer could always pull out, which means the coin won’t have sold for the price it says it has.
Rare coins and valuable notes – is yours worth a mint?
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