eBay has become the place where many look to find unique goods. Of late, rare coins have been selling for hundreds of pounds on the auction site. One such coin is this 2018 Representation of the People Act 50p, which was recently listed on the site for a whopping £5,000 to 10,000 times its face value to be precise. The seller – who goes by the name of “jerzy049” – listed the coin as “rare” with a starting price of £5,000.
eBay: ‘Rare’2018 Representation of the People Act 50p listed at £5,000 – is it worth it?
On top of the selling price, the eBay user requires the buyer to pay a £1.32 economy delivery fee, with the coin likely to take up to a week to arrive. Is it worth it?
The coin is the only official UK coin to celebrate the centenary of the Representation of the People Act 1918.
This historic anniversary marked a major victory for the suffragist movement – giving women the right to vote for the first time.
Only women aged 30 or older were allowed to vote under this law, while all men over the age of 21 were given the right to vote.
It was 10 years later, in 1928, when women finally received the vote on the same terms as men.
Designed by Stephen Taylor the reverse features five men and women in line to vote, with a woman triumphantly raising a voting card. The words “Representation of The People Act” are written under the date 1918.
The mintage and scarcity of the coin is yet to be revealed, so it’s difficult to estimate its worth.
The coin is also no longer available (with only an uncirculated version on sale at The Royal Mint for just £12.99), which could explain its high selling price.
The publication Spend it? Save it? What should you do?, written by Phil Mussell and the production team at Coin News Magazine, estimated this coin to be worth approximately £3.
Nevertheless, the experts insisted that coin sellers are well within their rights to list coins for whatever they want, and astonishingly, high price tags can make more affordable listings seem much more appealing.
Although, more often than not, the coins aren’t even worth that, so the buyer still ends up paying more than it is worth.
The guide warns: “So remember – just because a coin is listed at a certain price that doesn’t mean it is worth it and just because something seems to have sold for a certain amount that doesn’t mean it actually did.”
Another 50p coin was recently listed on eBay for £8,000. However, buyers were warned that all might not be as it seems.
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 most rare £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.
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