Exact detail to spot on rare 50p coin as one sells for £186 at auction – see if you can spot it
A RARE Kew Gardens 50p coin has sold for £186 on eBay after the seller revealed their copy had an unusual error.
The Kew Gardens design is one of the most sought after, so it can typically sell for hundreds on the online auction site anyway.
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But the minting mistake has made the coin sell for a lot more than its face value as well.
Bidders took their chance on the coin before it sold on October 27 this year.
Between them they placed 23 bids, which was enough to rocket the price to £186.
And the lucky winning bidder had to pay £9.46 for Royal Mail Special Delivery on top of the £186.
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The coin is suspected to have been mistruck at some point in the minting process.
While that makes it an imperfect design, it’s exactly the thing some collectors are looking for to fill their collection of one-offs and rare finds.
We take a look at what might happen if you spotted an odd one in your change, and how much you could make selling it on.
Why has this 50p sold for so much?
Collectors love error coins as they are produced in such low numbers – meaning they’re difficult to get hold of.
But that just means they can place a high price on something worth a lot less at face value.
That’s what happened with this 50p after it sold for over 287 times more than what you’d get for it in a vending machine or a parking meter or more.
The rare marking that makes error 50p worth more than 100 times its face value
Usually error coins will have missing elements, like the rare commemorative WW1 £2 coin spotted missing the words “two pounds”.
The design printed may be misaligned too, and in some cases that can make a coin look like it’s been overlapped by another.
Because they come across as peculiar, bidding wars can break out as collections scramble to claim something unique for their own.
But from one day to the next, interest can change on particular rare coins.
The Kew Gardens 50p remains at the top of the charts on Change Checker’s scarcity index so often collections are just after a copy because of the rare design.
There’s no hard and fast guarantee you’ll be minted snapping one up, though others have had success in the past, and a faulty one could boost your chances too.
Could one crop up in my change?
The Royal Mint manufactures between three million and four million coins a day, so mistakes will often happen and can rock up in your change.
Error coins are still legal tender too, so one could easily fall into your possession through any kind of transaction.
If you spot a coin that looks different to normal or is imperfect, you can check it against other listings on eBay to see how much others are selling for, or are willing to pay for a similar strike.
But remember that on eBay, a buyer can always pull out of the sale, which means it won’t have sold for the price that it may say it has.
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Experts also warn of fakes – especially when it comes to buying and selling on eBay – so you have to be careful when you’re on the hunt.
Change experts like Coin Hunter or Change Checker will help you verify if it’s real too, and they can help place a value on the coin that might put some weight in your wallet.