Rare Olympic 50p Sells For £1,500 In RWBA Coin Sale

Could you have a 50p in your change worth £1,500?

That's what one change checker made when he sold his 'Lines Over The Face' Aquatics 50p with RWB Auctions. This coin was one the star lots in our 8-9 May 2024 sale of coins and medals which included everything from ancient gold to rare modern collectables.

What Is The Error On The Swimming 50p?

The Aquatics 50p was issued by the UK's Royal Mint in 2011. These coins were part of a collection released before the 2012 London Olympics with 29 designs representing different sports.

Though these coins was released to celebrate the 2012 Olympics, the heads side displays a 2011 date, along with a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II.

The tails side of the Aquatics-themed 50p shows a goggle-wearing swimmer moving through the water with the words '50 PENCE' below and the logo for the London Games above. The design was created by Jonathan Olliffe who won a nationwide competition and has gone on to create several UK coins.

On coins with the more common design the face of the swimmer is fully visible.

In coins displaying the rare variant design, the swimmer's face is obscured with horizontal lines.

This has led to these sought-after coins being referred to as 'Lines Over Face' Aquatics 50ps in newspaper articles about valuable UK coins. They are sometimes referred to as error coins but it is more accurate to call them an alternate design than appears to have been tweaked soon after the first coins were issued.

A rare 'Lines Over Face' Olympic 50p (left), compared to an ordinary Aquatics 50p (right) - the difference can be seen in the watery lines over the swimmer's face.

How Many Aquatics 50p Coins Were Made?

Supposedly only 600 of these rare variant Aquatics 50ps were issued before the design was changed, making them perhaps the rarest circulating base metal 50p.

That figure is a lot lower than the better-known Kew Gardens 50p. 210,000 of these 2009 coins were released and they are still turning up in peoples change. At auction, a seller could expect to achieve a hammer price £120-160 for a Kew Gardens coin in 2024.

Other rare modern UK coins include:

• 1992-1993 Single Market 50p - just 109,000 of these old-style larger 50ps were struck. Though they have now been withdrawn from circulation its worth checking old piggy banks for this dual-dated coin.
• 2002 Northern Ireland Commonwealth Games £2 - this coin was part of a series of four similar Two Pounds representing the United Kingdom’s constituent nations, released to mark Manchester 2002. Just 485,500 of the NI variant coin were released.
• Undated 20p - In 2008, a small number of Twenty Pence coins were minted without a date, an error caused by old dies from a previous design being used. This issue impacted less than 250,000 coins according to The Royal Mint.
• 2019 A-Z 10p Coins - The Royal Mint released coins with Alphabet themed designs in 2018 and 2019, but the 2019 series is scarcer with the mintage number for some letters as low as 63,000. This makes it challenging for collectors to assemble a full set.

What Are Lines Over The Face Coins Worth?

The 'Lines Over The Face' Aquatics 50p is a key acquisition for many collectors of modern UK coins meaning examples can cause a frenzy when they hit the market.

These 2011-dated coins regularly sell for more than a thousand pounds. The example that featured as lot 332 in our May sale reached a truly astonishing hammer price of £1,500. That's a total of £1,680 when our low 10% buyer's premium is taken into account.

Since they are so valuable, cheap knock-offs have been produced in an attempt to cash in. These fake coins can be hard to spot unless you are a coin expert.

The Aquatics 50p that sold on 8 May had the benefit of being authenticated by one of the world's top grading and assessment services. The Numismatic Guarantee Company (known as NGC) have verified the authenticity of this 'Lines Over Face' aquatics 50p. The long number on the protective holder in which the 50p is sealed can be checked on NGC's online registry of rare coins.

Authentication by a third party company or examination by a reputable coin specialist can help coins like this achieve record breaking prices.

Speaking about the sale, modern coins specialist Christopher Collects said:

The Aquatics 50p with the lines over the face is about as rare as UK 50p coins get, it blows even the Kew Gardens 50p out of the water. It would be the centerpiece of any 50p coin collection within what is already a really popular set of Olympic coins.

The 'Lines Over Face' Aquatics 50p that sold in our May 2024 coin sale was authenticated by NGC and comes sealed in a labeled holder.

Sell Rare Modern Coins With RWB Auctions

RWB Auctions' Coin Department is currently taking consignments for their next sale which is scheduled for 25 September 2024.

Working in conjunction with specialists at The Britannia Coin Company, the team have achieved stand-out prices for circulating UK coins.

This includes a 2014 Lord Kitchener £2 coin struck with the wrong heads-side die which sold for £1,120 in our 14 February coin sale. An unusual 20p, struck on a disc of metal intended for a Penny achieved £224 in the same auction.

Seller's consigning their coins to RWB Auctions enjoy an industry leading 10% commission fee as standard. The Coin Department can exclusively offer 0% fees on items allocated to specialist numismatic sales that are valued at over £500.

Email coins@rwbauctions.com for more information.

Olympic Aquatics 50p In The Press

Ultra-rare Olympic 50p coin sells at auction for whopping £1,500 – how to spot one in your change (The Sun, 9 May 2024)

The rare 50p coin from the London 2012 Olympics that's just sold for £1,500 (ITV News, 9 May 2024)

Royal Mint: 2012 Olympics 50p sells for £1,500 in Wiltshire (Swindon Advertiser, 10 May 2024)

Royal Mint: 2012 Olympics 50p sells for £1,500 in Wiltshire (Gazette & Herald, 10 May 2024)