Do you have a 50p coin worth £590 in your purse?

valuable coins

If you’ve got some pocket change, make sure you have a good look at your 50ps before spending them as they could be worth a small fortune.

The most valuable 50p coin to date is the ‘error coin’ from the 2012 Olympic Games, which recently sold for a whopping £590 on auction site eBay. This particular coin was originally designed in 2011 to celebrate the aquatics competition.

valuable coins

Credit: eBay

However, it was redesigned to show more of the swimmers face, but a small number of coins featured the old design and entered circulation. It’s not known how many are out there, hence the massive value of the coin for collectors.

If you think you might have any valuable coins, experts at Changechecker.org have a tracker which lets users know which circulating 50p coins are the rarest and most collectable, so it’s definitely worth checking out. You might be lucky!

The current top spot is the Kew Gardens 50p piece, which has an estimated circulation total of just 210,000. It’s also in the most demand, and has been sold for up to £210 on auction sites.

valuable coins

Credit: The Royal Mint

Read more: Do you have one of the most valuable coins in the UK?

A coin that was released last year depicting Sir Isaac Newton was released into circulation last year, with £120 being the highest bid for that one so far.

More 2012 Olympic Games coins are also in high demand with a football 50p selling for up to £18.95, and a triathlon design selling for up to £16.

valuable coins

Credit: The Royal Mint

If you have a wrestling or judo design, they’ll fetch up to £11 and £13.50 respectively, so you’d still make a decent profit if you happen to find one in your change.

If you’ve got an adorable Jemima Puddle Duck 50p, that has recently sold for £26, with many collectors wanting to get their hands on the special Beatrix Potter design.

valuable coins

Credit: The Royal Mint

For those interested in selling a 50p coin, you should get it verified by The Royal Mint as there’s a lot of counterfeit ones out there. Apparently, around one in every four old £1 coins were thought to be fake, so it’s worth getting checked out.

Good luck!

Lucy Buglass
Digital Writer

Lucy Buglass is a Digital Writer for What's on TV, Goodto.com, and Woman&Home. After finishing her degree in Film Studies at Oxford Brookes University she moved to London to begin her career. She's passionate about entertainment and spends most of her free time watching Netflix series, BBC dramas, or going to the cinema to catch the latest film releases.