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Glasgow Live
Glasgow Live
National
Sophie Buchan

Rare 50p Kew Garden coin selling for over £100 as expert hails it collectors 'holy grail'

A rare Kew Garden 50p coin is currently being sold online for £120 with people - collector or not - being told to keep an eye out for it.

Speaking to Glasgow Live, one expert hailed it as a 'holy grail' coin as they are "pretty hard to come by".

So if you have one in your pocket, wallet, or down the side of your couch, you may want to reach for it and put it up for sale - or keep it in a safe place.

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The coin, listen on eBay is selling for £120 and according to the Royal Mint, "if you were to ask collectors which coin got them started, the chances are it was the 50p."

The Royal Mint has said it is an "iconic" coin explaining: "Nothing gets people excited quite like this original 2009 design. Just 210,000 were released into circulation and with almost all of them in private hands, the chances of coming across one in your change are slim."

Speaking to Glasgow Live, Rachel Hooper, Product Group Manager for Change Checker who has been working in the industry for five years, specialising in UK new issue coins and championing the hobby of change collecting said that it's one to look out for.

Explaining that the Scarcity index is worth looking at to find out how sought after your coin is, she added that Change Checker use their "own data from our swap centre looking at how often coins are swapped, how often they are listed as well as mintage figures for the circulating coins and that determines how sought after each coin in circulation is."

The coin is one to look out for. (eBay)

She continued: "You'll notice the Kew Gardens 50p always seems to be at the top of that index and it's really the holy grail I guess of change collecting. It's certainly pretty hard to come by and there's only 210,000 of them out there which is really, really low especially when you consider where the next rarest 50p in circulation is the Beatrix Potter one which is 1.4 million. The Olympic ones are rare too.

"So it's a really big jump up from 210,000 to 1.4 million but it also means that it's really tricky to come by and especially when you consider a lot of collectors, if they found it, they've been keeping hold of that. It's currently selling on the second market for well over face value, sometimes you see listed for upwards of around £200."

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