Old Coins

[Allen]

Went to a shop this morning and got some change as normal, looked at it and all seemed fine, didn't notice anything different.

Now I'm at work I just tried getting a can of drink from one of our machines so used a 50p coin I had been given earlier but the machine wouldn't accept it. When I looked at it I realise something was wrong. So I used a £1 coin, got my drink and it chucked out a 50p change. Upon comparing my 50p to the 50p it chucked out, my one is much bigger and much heavier.

At first I thought it was a fake, but looking at it, it's dated 1977, the bloody coin is 2 years older than i am!! And it's also in pretty damn good condition for such an old coin. There's hardly any imperfections on the coin, it's bright and shiny and is very clean.

So I looked up on the web to see if I could get any info as to when the coin was taken out of circulation and I found this site: United Kingdom 50p Coin Design

The coin I have is the very first one, used between 1969 and 1982 and looks exactly like the image shows.



It's unbelievable that such an old coin is in such perfect condition. It's even in better condition than the 1997 50p the drink machine gave me as change!

So, anyone here know if it's worth anything more than 50p?

[M0nkeyb0Y]

if my banking experience serves me well it'll be worth 50p - just take it into a bank and they'll swap it

[Allen]

Lol, it wouldn't be worth 50p as it's not in circulation anymore.

And I'm pretty sure that as with all coins, once they're taken out of circulation, you only have a limited time in which they will swap old for new coins. Since this coin was stopped in 1982, I'm betting that time peroid might just be up!

But hey, I may be wrong, hence why I asked here.

[funke_munke]

Maybe someone dipped it in Cillit Bang?

[Allen]

LOL! God I hate those adverts...

"CILLIT BANG!!"

Yeah, yeah, you don't need to shout about it!

[Hicks12]

it maybe worth mroe than 50p, google it etc as there are loads of collectors and this is something they tend to collect, try ebay ifyou want or something thats free to advertise.

[Allen]

Yeah, I had a look at ebay, loads on there for a £1 (not even worth thinking of selling for that, lol) but someone was selling this DDay 50p coin and it's bid was about £20!

[Stringent]

Originally Posted by Allen

LOL! God I hate those adverts...

"CILLIT BANG!!"

Yeah, yeah, you don't need to shout about it!

You forgot the accent ...

[M0nkeyb0Y]

Originally Posted by Allen

Lol, it wouldn't be worth 50p as it's not in circulation anymore.

And I'm pretty sure that as with all coins, once they're taken out of circulation, you only have a limited time in which they will swap old for new coins. Since this coin was stopped in 1982, I'm betting that time peroid might just be up!

When I worked in a bank as a student I seem to remember a guy who was clearing out his mother's house and found a shoe box of tenners - the ones first released after decimalisation (i.e. older than yours), and we swapped them.

The circulation thing is when they're accepted as tender (in shops etc.)

Try it or keep it as a memento to this ace thread

[Whiternoise]

Did you not notice the humungous 50p when they gave it to you?

I've got a few old coins knocking about, the old 5ps as well, they were huge, but the 50's do look massive compared to the ones we use now.

[Butcher]

That coin is too common to be worth much - only properly old or rare coins are actually worth anything more than face value.

[Allen]

Originally Posted by Whiternoise

Did you not notice the humungous 50p when they gave it to you?

In all honesty, no. It was handed to me with a bunch of coins (about £4 something in change in total) and I looked to make sure the change was correct and it's kinda hard to see the small difference between the old and the new one when other coins are in your hand.

Obviously afterwards when I compared a new to old one only, I could see the difference immediately, it was quite a bit heavier and larger in all dimensions.