Would you recognise hidden treasure?
We all dream of finding hidden treasure. Hoards of gold coins in the garden, buried jewels in the allotment or silver in the attic. But would you actually recognise treasure if you saw it?
It’s not such a silly question! When retired security systems installer Bruce Campbell found a rare Edward VI shilling buried in the mud on Vancouver Island, he had no idea of the significance of his find. He only started hunting for treasure with a hand-held metal detector because he was ‘sick of TV and getting fat’.
The Edward VI shilling – minted in London between 1551 and 1553 – could turn history on its head and prove that Sir Francis Drake discovered Canada before the Spanish.
Treasure is waiting to be found in the most unexpected places. Five years ago Terry Herbert, from Burntwood, Staffordshire, uncovered the UK’s most valuable hoard as he searched a field near his home. The Anglo-Saxon hoard, believed to date back to the Seventh Century, contains around 5kg of Gold and 2.5kg of silver and was valued at over £3m.
Tales like these bring out the treasure hunter in all of us, but do you actually know what treasure is?
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Treasure Act defines treasure as
objects or coins that are at least 300 years old and contain a minimum of 10% gold or silver. If the object is of prehistoric date it will be treasure provided any part of it is precious metal.
You can read the full Act and find out more about responsible metal detecting on the National Council for Metal Detecting’s website http://www.ncmd.co.uk/treasure%20act.htm
But if long days hunting around in cold and muddy fields are not your cup of tea, don’t despair – you might have more modern treasure right here to hand in your pocket, so remember to keep checking your change with Change Checker!
Do you own the UK’s rarest 50p piece? And it’s not Kew Gardens.
Have you heard about the 50p coin that many thousands of people have found in their daily pocket change which was sold on e-Bay for prices upward of £100.00. Or to put it another way, 200 times its actual value?!
Only 109,000 1992 EC 50p were issued into circulation – roughly half of the Kew Gardens 50p.
It was all because in 2014 The Royal Mint announced that the Kew Gardens 50p coin is the UK’s most scarce circulation coin, with just 210,000 pieces ever been placed into circulation. The result was a media storm and the inevitable overnight ramping of prices.
Half the circulation of the Kew Gardens 50p
But what few people realise is that there is an even rarer UK 50p piece that was issued in half the number of the Kew Gardens coin – just 109,000 coins.
The coin was issued in 1992 to mark the EC Single Market and the UK presidency of the Council of Ministers – perhaps not the most popular of topics, which maybe was the reason so very few were pushed out into circulation. But of course, its lack of popularity at the time, is the very thing that now makes it Britain’s rarest 50p coin.
Sadly, however hard you search, unlike the Kew Gardens 50p, you will not find this one in your change. That’s because it is one of the old-sized 50p coins that were demonetised in 1998.
The coin itself was designed by Mary Milner Dickens and pictures the UK’s place at the head of the Council of Ministers’ conference table. The stars represent each of the nations’ capital cities placed in their relative geographical position.
But it won’t be the coin’s clever design that will guarantee its numismatic interest for years to come. It is its status as the UK’s most rare circulation 50p is what will intrigue collectors and have them searching and saving up in years to come.
If you’re interested in coin collecting, our Change Checker web app is completely free to use and allows users to:
– Find and identify the coins in their pocket
– Collect and track the coins they have
– Swap their spare coins with other Change Checkers
Sign up today at: www.changechecker.org/app
Why we wouldn’t pay £120 (or even £24 for that matter) for the Kew Gardens 50p
How much is it worth to you?
After revealing some months ago that the Kew Gardens 50p is the rarest of all the 50p coins currently in circulation, the Royal Mint has successfully pushed the story out into the national press.
The resultant hype has seen prices sky-rocket. The Guardian initially reported prices being paid of £24 for the coin but before long the Daily Mirror and other news sources were quoting prices of £120 from e-Bay.
Incredibly, as we write, an original Brilliant Uncirculated version in a Royal Mint presentation pack (not actually one of the coins that went into circulation) is currently listed with bids of £310 on e-Bay.
But let’s step back from the hype for a minute and consider the facts:
- Yes, with just 210,000 pieces ever released into circulation this is a very scarce coin.
One listing on eBay has reached an unbelievable £310.
- That does mean that there is only one coin for every 300 people in the UK.
- Collectors will have taken some out of circulation.
But most of the coins will still be in circulation and remain so for many years.
25% of Change Checkers own the Kew Gardens 50p
In fact if you keep your eyes peeled as a Change Checker, you’ve still got fair chance of owning one. Amongst 50p Change Checkers about a quarter have Kew Gardens listed in their collection and we’re sure they haven’t all paid £120 for their coins.
So what to do if you’re impatient to own one. Well don’t panic and pay today’s prices, which are hugely inflated by the media hype. Bide your time a little and look around.
And, in case you really want one now, we’ve got 5 in stock, which we’re selling for only £17.50 each. If you’re interested just fill in the form below.
So there are two morals to the Kew Gardens story:
- You never know what treasure’s in your pocket
- Don’t believe everything you read in the papers.
Happy Change Checking.
Read about the 50p coin that is even rarer than Kew Gardens
Register your interest in a Kew Gardens 50p for £17.50
Enter your name and contact details below before 28th February to register your interest in one of five Kew Gardens 50ps we have available. If we receive more than five enquiries before the closing date we will draw five people at random and contact them directly with further details.
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