UK’s rarest coin sells for nearly 300 times its face value after eBay bidding war – check your change
THE UK’s rarest coin has sold for 292 times its face value after an intense bidding war on eBay.
The collectable 50p coin is stamped with a Kew Gardens design and eventually went for £146 online.
Described by the Royal Mint itself as “the most sought-after” coin, the Kew Gardens 50p was minted in 2009.
The Royal Mint website says: “Nothing gets people excited quite like this original 2009 design.”
It produced 210,000 of them, and most are in private hands.
There are hundreds of millions of 50p coins in circulation, so the odds of you coming across one are slim – but not impossible.
Stamped onto the coin’s reverse side, or its “tail”, is a design depicting the famous Chinese Pagoda at Kew – the nations most famous royal botanical garden.
It shows the impressive tower, which is almost 300 years old, adorned with a simple but elegant leaf pattern.
Demand for this particular design was low at the time of release, which is why only a small number was created.
But it has since become iconic amongst collectors
The Royal Mint included the coveted coin in its collection called Celebrating 50 years of the 50p 2019 British Culture Set.
The special coin’s legendary status is what drove such a fierce bidding war on eBay.
Its starting price was just 99p – but that soon climbed.
Over seven days, 15 different bidders place 33 different bids – and it went down to the wire.
The wining bid of £139.69 was placed with less than a minute of the auction left on the clock.
When scouring your cash for one of these, you could also come across a 2019 version of the coin.
It was released as part of the Culture Set, and bears the same pagoda design but a different effigy of the late Queen.
Another extremely rare 50p coin was up for sale for a staggering 10,000 times its face value.
The “extremely rare” 50p coin is “a must-have for any coin collector” and was being sold by a Bolton resident for more than £5,000.
Commemorating the coronation of King Charles III, the coin was first circulated in 2022.
It was the first coin to bear the face of the newly appointed monarch, which quickly made it a “super” rare piece for collectors.
This piece of “British currency history” is being sold on eBay for a whopping £5,086.72.
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