50p Paddington Bear: eBay listing sells coin for £850 – but is it really rare?

Paddington Bear 50p coins are proving hugely popular. Released in 2019, the coins spark nostalgia for parents, and joy for children.

That is because this coin is a Gold Proof coin.

What does this mean? The Royal Mint issues a small number of special edition coins in 22 carat gold.

These coins are often hugely popular, as this piece evidently was.

The Paddington at the Tower 2019 UK 50p Gold Proof Coin has sold out of all 600 limited edition pieces.

In fact, it was listed on the Royal Mint website for just £10, although it is now sold out.

It can also be bought on the Westminster Collection website for a reasonable £12.99.

According to the coin website, Change Checker, it has a high mintage of 5,001,000.

The website also classed the piece as “common”, not rare, and gave it the ranking of “two” on the Scarcity Index.

Experts at the magazine, Spend It? Save It? What Should You Do? suggested the coin is actually worth only £5.

Which are the rarest £1, £2, 50p, 20p, 10p and 2p coins?

Rarest £2 coins

The rarest £2 coin is the 2002 Commonwealth Games NI coin with 485,500 in circulation. This is followed by the 2002 Commonwealth Games Wales which has 588,500 in circulation.

Next up is the 2015 Navy, and there are 650,000 in circulation.

Rarest £1 coins

The rarest £1 coins are all part of a series celebrating the British capitals.

The rarest of these is the 2011 Edinburgh coin, with 935,000 in circulation. Of the 2011 Cardiff coins there are 1,615,000 in circulation, while the 2010 London coin has 2,635,000 in circulation.

Rarest 50p coin

The rarest 50p coin is the Kew Gardens coin, which is also the rarest coin in circulation. It there were only 210,000 minted.

The football Olympic 50p coin has 1,125,500 in circulation, and the wrestling coin has 1,129,500 in circulation.

It is not so easy to evaluate the rarest 20p coins, 10p coins and even 2p coins as exact circulation figures are not known.

However, various versions of the coins are known to sell for large sums.

These include the dateless 20ps, which are actually part of a run from 2008. There may be between 50,000 and 200,000 of these coins in circulation.

The 1983 ‘New Pence’ 2p coin can also sell for a huge sum, up to £650.