Commemorative Blue Peter 50p coin sold for £286 on eBay

A unique 50p coin, designed as part of a Blue Peter competition to mark the London 2012 Olympic games, has sold on eBay for £286 – a huge 570 times the value.

Designed back in 2009 by nine year old Florence Jackson, the coin features an athlete doing the high jump.

According to the Liverpool Echo, the coin is valuable to collectors as just under 20,000 of these were made and were sold on the Royal Mint for £1.99.

That means coins like the one designed by Florence were never officially put into circulation when they were minted – but that doesn’t mean some didn’t enter everyday transactions.

Another 2 million commemorative coins were later minted in 2011, but these are less valuable as they were widely available, compared to the 2009 mint.

In the eBay listing, the coin sold for £286 after attracting 23 bids over a seven-day auction, with a starting price of just 1p.

The description reads: “RARE 2009 Blue Peter 50p NGC Graded Coin MS 68. Sent Royal Mail Special delivery only.”

We’ve previously seen how one of these Blue Peter 50p coins sold for £205 on eBay back in April this year, and before that one fetched £148 on the auction site.

But the price you’ll get when buying or selling a coin on eBay is never guaranteed.

You should also keep in mind that fake coins can appear online too, so always be wary before handing over any cash.

Websites and Facebook groups from change experts like Coin Hunter can help you work out if a coin is the real deal or not.

You can also get coins verified by the Royal Mint.

In 2010 and 2011, 29 new 50p designs were released into circulation to mark the 2012 Olympics games in London.

These are still proving popular with collectors, as a list of rarest 50p coins in circulation in 2021 featured seven Olympic coins in its top ten list.

If you have an error coin, it could be worth a lot too – but these are also much harder to find.

For example, an error coin of a swimmer for the Olympics collection sold for £600 in 2019.

Another coin to watch out for is this bizarre 20p with no date on – it can fetch up to £60 on eBay.

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