No sign of one in my change
The manager of Corals where I donate a few quid every week has a few though

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/55936061#comments

Apologies if it's been on here

For those of you who collect 50p’s this may be interesting. This year the Royal Mint produced a 50p 50 years anniversary coin. It was available in the Annual coin sets released by the RM every year as either proof or brilliant uncirculated. The obverse of this coin featured the 1st portrait of the Queen as in 1971.

However, in January this year the RM issued a 50th anniversary 50p coin with the Queens 5th portrait (the current one) on it. Quite unusual. Two of the same coins in the same year with different portraits of the Queen on it. Unless you specifically collect 50p coins this may not be any interest to you personally. Of general interest nonetheless and depending upon the mintage figures, may be of value in the future.

Hadn’t realised until now that Banksy has influenced the Numismatic world. In 2004 he released thousands of fake tenners into the NottingHill Carnival and later at the Reading festival. They were known as Di faced tenners released by Banksy of England as they had a photo of the Princess of Wales on the front with altered wording on the back.

At the time apparently some people managed to spend them at face value. They shouldn’t have. In December last year one (genuine) Banksy fake sold for 5,570 dollars!!

Apparently even the British Museum has a copy of this Banksy tenner curated amongst their coins, medals and paper money.

If you have one, contact an auction house and ask what it is worth. Beware buying one though. Apparently there are (fake) fakes doing the rounds. Where there is money, there is money to be made. Fascinating.

Today is the 50th anniversary of DDay, the decimalisation of our coinage.

I remember it well. Couldn’t see what the fuss was about but my Nan took the opposite view. For a while she refused to spend any of this ‘foreign’ money. I think the older generation at the time took it very personally.

Great story on the BBC news page about what coins to look out for today. They have interviewed someone from the Royal Mint about the ‘valuable’ coins out there. The number one has nothing to do with decimalisation. I will leave it to you to guess what it is.

I have mentioned previously that the numismatic world has been setting price records in the past year as new collectors enter the arena. News this week that another record has been set.

There is an annual bun (coin) fight called the New York Numismatic Convention. It is held every year, guess where This year was held online. A Brasher doubloon was sold on auction there in January for 9.3 million dollars. Wow. What was special about the coin is that it was the first gold coin minted by the newly independent USA and only 9 are know to be in existence.

At the sale, 6 coins were sold for over a million dollars, with five world records being set. The overall auction sale was 90.68 million dollars. For coins ffs!! Some of these coins went to new clients who had never purchased coins before.

As I said, there is money to be made in coins. Out of my range though.

Had a nice Diversity 50p coin today! :D

Willthiswork wrote:Had a nice Diversity 50p coin today! :D

Nice one. Haven’t got a circulated one yet. Got a BU one though. Apparently 10 million of them are going in to circulation so they will be quite common.

News of a new £2 coin about to be issued. Gibraltar are going to celebrate the boxing match between Dillian Whyte and Alexander Povotkin there on 27 March by issuing a new £2 coin.

Gibraltar coins are legal tender but are not issued in the UK. The first coins have already been struck apparently. Don’t think I will be getting one though as the Royal Mint won’t have any.

News this week that the selection for the person on the new polymer £50 note has been announced by the Bank of England. It is going to be Alan Turing, the Scientist, Mathematician and all round bloody good chap. He played a massive part in this country winning the Second World War. The way the country treated him afterwards was a national scandal. Anyway, enough politics.

There are lots of security features on the new note plus a lot of cryptology clues as well. I think it is a good one but I will probably never have one as I am not that rich.

Point of note - the authorities were not very keen on £50 notes at all. They think they are the domain of the rich, the hoarders and the fences. I think we have the ‘lowest’ value of high denomination note of most industrialised countries because of this.

If you are that way inclined, GCHQ have done a Turing quiz on line, based on the £50 note. It is a series of 14 questions and has been set by GCHQ Intelligence staff staff so it is probably very difficult. I won’t be trying, but, good luck if you do.

At least they didn’t select Mrs Thatcher. She was nominated apparently.

Hi Pemba, hope you’re keeping well?

Can you recommend me a file or similar presentation case & inserts to store my growing 50p (plus a few unusual £2 coins) collection please? Was given a further 40 x 50p pieces this week and I’d like to clean them up and store them somewhere, so all the Olympic, Peter Rabbit etc coins are alongside each other.

Many thanks

DeePeeNCAFC wrote:Hi Pemba, hope you’re keeping well?

Can you recommend me a file or similar presentation case & inserts to store my growing 50p (plus a few unusual £2 coins) collection please? Was given a further 40 x 50p pieces this week and I’d like to clean them up and store them somewhere, so all the Olympic, Peter Rabbit etc coins are alongside each other.

Many thanks

Hi mate, all well thank you.

One of the downsides of collecting coins is that it is always best to store them safely, and if you want to put them in a specialist folder, they can be quite expensive.

Change checker is a site that does folders. The Royal Mint also do them for £2 and 50p pieces. Unfortunately they have cottoned on to the fact that they can make money out of collecting coins. A few years ago you could get a great £2 coin folder from the Mint for all 37 coins for £5. Now you have to buy 4 albums at £5 each. It is a rip off.

You can of course put them in a clear plastic wallet and they normally sell for about £5/6. There are loads on eBay.

If you type in coin albums on eBay you will see a good selection there. One of the better ones is from a company called Cambridge coins. They are very good. My daughter bought me a specialist £2 coin album from them for my birthday and it is very good. They include coin capsules that fit in all the pictured coin slots. There is even a description of what the coin is. They do offers and I think at the moment you can get one for about £14.

I got a few specialist Beatrix Potter albums from eBay and they cost about £13. Try and get one that holds all the coins not the ones for selected years. The Royal Mint sell an album for each year and they are quite expensive.

Little tip. If you want to put your coins in albums, put them in coin capsules first. They are good for protecting the coins. They come in various sizes for each coin and normally sell in bundles of about 50/100. Some of the better ones on eBay also come with a protective rubber grommet that you have to push out of its holder. Never ever store all your coins in a jar where they knock against each other. The grading system for coins is very critical and even the smallest blemish will alter the value of your coin. Put it in a capsule even if it has already been in circulation.

Regarding the comment about ‘cleaning them up’, please be careful. Use nothing more than tepid water with a mild amount of washing up liquid and rinse them between your fingers, no scrubbing to get the dirt off, it will damage the coin. Dry with kitchen wipes.

Good luck.

Many thanks for your reply Pembs, very helpful.

I’ve had a look on eBay and there are loads on there, all similarly priced albums which hold 96 coins, but I couldn’t specifically find any from Cambridge Coins, which I like the sound of if they include coin capsules (are they different to the plastic wallets?) and a short description.

Any chance you could let me have a hyperlink to the one you recommend please?

Thanks again and best wishes

Get a normal 'polly pocket' plastic page and staple around the coins.

DeePeeNCAFC wrote:Many thanks for your reply Pembs, very helpful.

I’ve had a look on eBay and there are loads on there, all similarly priced albums which hold 96 coins, but I couldn’t specifically find any from Cambridge Coins, which I like the sound of if they include coin capsules (are they different to the plastic wallets?) and a short description.

Any chance you could let me have a hyperlink to the one you recommend please?

Thanks again and best wishes

If you type in Cambridge coins in your search engine you can see them there. On the album page there are loads of products. They even have albums for sixpence, shillings and half crowns if that takes your fancy. The two that you want sell for £14.95 and £19.95 each. Bit pricey but it does make your collection more professional and safe. They also have albums for the Beatrix Potter coins that you mentioned. They are going for approx £12. Go for the full album of 15 coins.

As I said earlier eBay also sells lots of plain albums. I use them but they are only to store coins prior to going in a proper album set.

Capsules are small hard plastic shells that open up to store a coin. Lots of various sizes are available and they are relatively cheap. Lots available on eBay.

If you go on eBay and look at the selling price for albums complete with full sets, some of them are going for several hundred pounds. They will only increase in price as well. The only reduction in price that I have seen for coins in the past few years is the Olympic 2020 50p piece. Some numpty’s were ripping that out of complete annual sets last year and selling them for £40/45. Those same coins are now going for £25 on average. Common sense at last.

Regarding Cambridge coins on eBay, I notice that the album I mentioned is no longer there. They do offers though and I have no doubt that it will be offered again soon. I did see a very similar £2 album on eBay this morning. With a full set of coins and capsules that £2 album is going for over £900. Bloody hell, I hope no one pays that amount.

If you want to know more about links for buying and selling there is an excellent coin magazine every month called Coin news. I subscribe, but each copy is £4.20. It is well worth it as everything you need for coin info is there. Ads, links, offers, fairs, the lot. Trouble is, it is so comprehensive it takes me a few weeks to read it. Still haven’t finished last months yet.