A FIFTY pence piece was sold for 32 times its value due to a rare design.
Leading up to the 2012 Olympic Games in London, coins were released featuring images of athletes participating in a variety of sports.
One even explained the offside rule in football.
And with just weeks to go before this summer’s tournament in Paris, one of those London 50p offside coins has sold for £16 on eBay, reports Bolton News.
As a result, Brits are being advised to check through any of their souvenirs or memorabilia from previous Olympic Games as they could be worth a lot of money.
The coin was described as “unique” by the seller, from Warrington. It shows part of a pitch and an example of players on and offside.
The 2012 Olympic Games logo can also be seen at the top.
The coin launched a mini bidding war.
The same design previously sold for £32.
The 2012 Olympics Games collection of 50p coins are some of the rarest ever produced by the Royal Mint.
The wrestling, football and judo coins saw just 1.1 million released each.
The rarest is the Kew Gardens design, released in 2009, with only 210,000 produced.
It sells for an average of £156.25 on average, though one eBay seller got over £700.
Generally, the lower a coin’s mintage figure, the more you will be able to sell it for in an auction, on eBay or Facebook Marketplace.
But this isn’t always the case and some coins have been known to sell for more than others despite more having been put into circulation.
You can find out what a coin’s mintage figure is by going on The Royal Mint’s website.
Meanwhile, some coins are also considered rare when there was a mistake in the manufacturing process.
These are commonly known as “error” coins, and there are usually just a few in circulation.
The coin to fetch the most in the Olympic range in recent months is the Aquatics error coin though, which sold for £150.
The error in the design makes it more valuable to collectors, just like several other rare error coins out there too.
Otherwise, the 2012 aquatics coin with the updated design is one of the more highly circulated coins with 2,197,000 released.
