Someone just turned 50p into £10,000 after selling a special Olympic themed coin on auction website eBay.
The coin was listed on eBay 10 days ago with a starting bid of just £10, but interest quickly spiralled.
It entered circulation nine years ago to mark the London 2012 Olympic Games and attracted 68 bids, the winning one of which was £10,101.
The seller wrote: “I don’t understand much about coins, but I believe this coin is genuine. Do not bid if you don’t feel confident.”
In 2010 and 2011, 29 new 50p designs were released into circulation to mark the 2012 Olympics.
This included an Olympics Swimmer coin featuring wavy lines across the swimmer’s face, however, only 600 were ever produced before the design was amended to show the athlete’s full face.
Six-hundred is a tiny, tiny amount in the world of coin collecting. To put this into context, there are around 6.7 million Battle of Hastings 50p coins in circulation and 2,179,000 Olympic Triathlon 50p coins out there right now.
And that’s what makes it so valuable, reports The Mirror.
Experts at coin specialists, ChangeChecker, predict that these coins could be worth between £1,000 and £1,500.
The seller found it on the beach using a metal detector and said they believed the coin was in fact one of the rare editions.
If you’ve got one at home, check to see if the water lines cross over the swimmer’s face - if they do, you could be onto a winner.
Of course, a coin is only worth what someone will pay for it so there’s no guarantee that yours will sell for as much.
