A rare Snowman 50p coin has sold for £100 on eBay – and it’s all because there’s a major error on the design.
The Snowman 50p is a design that was released around Christmas time two years ago to celebrate the beloved festive family film, but this one features a flaw.
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That flaw has only driven up the price though, making the coin in the sale worth 200 times more than its face value of 50p.
Where the coloured design should meet the edges of the 50p all around its perimeter, it’s slightly misaligned.
That means the top of the coin has a bit of silver peeking through where it shouldn’t.
The quids-in seller of the coin said: “I’ve seen a couple that have been slightly misprinted before, but nowhere near as much as this coin.
“It’s probably a one off piece.”
It’s already a unique and rare coin, as it features a commemorative design.
rare coins and valuable notes
These, in general, often sells for hundreds on the online auction site, so it’s no surprise to see this one gain the same attention.
Over the Christmas period we saw other commemorative style coins in similar festive designs, as well as all the other The Snowman motifs in the long running collection, sell for hundreds of pounds.
There’s four different variations of The Snowman 50p that we know of.
A commemorative The Snowman 50p coin was first released in November 2018 to celebrate 40 years since Raymond Briggs’ original Christmas novel was published.
The coin featured The Snowman flying through the sky above Brighton Pier alongside human pal James.
The next November, the second coin was released showing The Snowman on a snow-carpeted lawn with James in front of him and the forest in the background.
On its third reincarnation, the coin instead featured The Snowman hugging James.
A brand new coin was released last year too of course, and it featured a scene straight out the original storybook, of James creating the snowman.
But it’s not only Christmas coins that’ll do well on eBay – there’s also a range of 2012 Olympics coins that each depict various sporting events from the world-renowned games, and they’ll often sell above face value as well.
Are errors like this worth a lot of money?
If you spot a coin that looks different to normal, it might have a minting error of its own.
Error coins are still legal tender, so there is a chance one will show up in your own spare change.
The Royal Mint manufactures between three million and four million coins a day, so often things will go wrong but that being said, they’ll still be produced in low numbers making them rare.
So collectors will still be keen to get their hands on any they find, and they’ll usually place a big ticket price on one they have their eye on
If the coin didn’t have the obvious mistake to show off, it could only be worth its face value of 50p or the £4.50 that it sells for officially on the Westminster collection.
You can check erros you find against other listings on eBay to see how much others are selling or willing to pay for a similar miss-strike.
We’ve often seen bidding wars break out on the most highly sought-after copies.
Usually you can determine if something is the real deal by the number of bidders on a similar listing who were willing to stake their claim on it.
Sadly this example has just the one bid, and while sometimes that can be all it takes, you also have to be wary that it might not have sold for the price it says it has.
Remember that a buyer can always pull out of the sale too, which means it won’t have sold for the price that it may say it has.
You should also be aware of fakes, as you could find yourself duped by something that’s not actually valuable – making a major mistake yourself.
If you’re worried, change experts like Coin Hunter or Change Checker will help you verify if something is a real error too, and they can help place a value as well.
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