MYTH: The £2 coin with the edge inscription (writing) upside down is rare and valuable.
REALITY: The edge inscription is produced separately from rest of the coin. You therefore have a 50%
chance of right side up, and a 50% change of upside down, depending on the coin's position when it gets fed
through the machine.
MYTH: "New Pence" coins are rare and valuable.
REALITY: Only the 1983 2p with "New Pence" is rare and valuable - this is a mule which was produced using the 1983 obverse
twinned with the 1971-81 reverse. All 1968-1969 and 1971-1981 British coins say "new pence/new penny" - this was to distinguish them from
the pre-decimal pennies (240 to the pound) produced prior to decimalisation. These are not rare or valuable.
MYTH: 1997 50p coins are rare and valuable.
REALITY: According to the Royal Mint website, 456,364,100 of these were produced for circulation. Any shop till will be full of them.
MYTH: Minor errors are rare and valuable, like die breaks (e.g. pemember instead of remember) and missing dots around the Queen's head.
REALITY: Circulation coins are seldom perfect, and common minor errors are generally unsaleable at any price. There are exceptions to this rule -
American collectors seem to be fascinated with double-struck dates and overstruck mintmarks, many of which are only visible through a strong magnifier.
With British coins, however, the error usually needs to be grotesque (or at least a catalogued variety) for the coin to have any value, e.g. a mule
(the obverse of one coin twinned with the reverse of another coin), a coin struck on a blank or metal meant for another coin, serious alignment errors
such as the reverse of the coin pointing sideways when you flip it, or a large portion of the coin being struck off the blank.
MYTH: My Benjamin Bunny or Peter Rabbit 50p or whatever is worth hundreds or thousands.
REALITY: As EBay do not charge a listing fee for private sellers, there are plenty of people who list 50p's and other common items there
for 500 or 1000 or 5000 pounds. As everyone wants to know whether the 50p in their pocket is actually worth a fortune, these listings get
looked at over and over and thus move to the top of the Google rankings. So if you search for some common 50p the top listings will probably
tell you that it's worth LOOOOOTS of MOOOONEY. It's not. NOT EVERYTHING ONLINE IS REAL. We are sick and tired of patiently explaining to people
that their 50p is worth 50p when they are adamant that it's worth 500 pounds or whatever. The internet is simply not a reliable source of
information about coin prices unless you know where to look and how to weed out the rubbish. The only UK commemorative currently in circulation
with a value of £100 or more (in our opinion) is the 2009 Kew Gardens 50p.
DISCLAIMER: The above merely constitutes our opinion, and we will not be held liable for any decision which you may take as a consequence of reading it.