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Liverpool Echo

World

Sophie Buchan & James McNeill

How to find out if your loose change is worth thousands of pounds

eBay Beatrix Potter King Charles III Change Checker the Royal Mint

There are more than 200 million 50ps circulating in the UK, however, they are not all the same.

The mintage figure of a coin indicates how many of each were made. If a coin design has a low mintage, this means there are fewer of it in circulation, making it rarer. Because of the demand, many people are now keen on how to tell whether or not their coin could be worth anything and more importantly, how they can sell their coins.

Change Checker, who help find, identify, collect, and swap circulating coins for free has given advice on how to check the value of your coins. So whether you're an avid coin collector or are just keen to get rid of your spare change, here's what you should be doing the next time you pick up a coin.

And if they do turn out to be rare, what's the best way of selling them and receiving the cash? To help people out, Glasgow Live spoke to coin expert Rachel Hooper, who is the project group manager for Change Checker, an online tool for finding and swapping rare coins.

Why you should get your coins verified by the Royal Mint

Rachel, who has worked in the coin industry for five years and specialises in UK new-issue coins, says that there are a lot of different factors in place when it comes to valuing a coin. She said: "You have a number of ways you can look out for rare coins and ways to spot why your coin would be worth a certain amount.

"We would always advise that if you had a coin in your collection you were trying to sell and another collector has been trying to track that down for a really long time, of course, that collector would potentially be willing to pay above the odds to get hold of it to complete their collection. If another collector did have that coin already or didn't hold it to such value, you would perhaps struggle to get as much or that coin."

And ahead of selling, it's advised that you get it verified beforehand, with Rachel explaining: "If you do think you've come across a rare coin, you probably want to get that verified by the Royal Mint because you're always likely to be able to get a better price for your coin if you have that certificate of authenticity that would explain what the error is."

She added that "it would be a real collector's piece if you could say 'I found this coin, the Royal Mint has verified it, therefore, it's genuine'. After that, you can look at selling it from there."

When it comes to selling them, Change Checker has created an eBay tracker to help people know how much certain coins have been sold for.

Rachel explains: "Part of our six-point guide is to check our eBay tracker. This looks back at the median sold prices overs of the top ten coins and banknotes that you can find out there and it gives you information on their current market value. We look at trends and patterns so you can see an overall pattern for how desirable coins are at the moment and how much people could be willing to pay above the odds for them.

How to identify a rare coin

Kew Gardens 50p remains the most coveted coin in circulation, with a mintage of just 210,000 (PA)

If you don't know what to look for, it can be hard to know if any of your coins could be worth selling. Speaking about their six-point guide, Rachel has said it's worth checking it out - because "there is nothing more exciting when you find a different coin in your change and you want to figure out how much it's worth and whether it's a collectible."

The Scarcity index is also a useful tool to find out how sought-after your coin is. Change Checker uses their "own data from our swap centre, looking at how often coins are swapped, how often they are listed as well as mintage figures for the circulating coins and that determines how sought after each coin in circulation is."

Rachel continued: "You'll notice the Kew Gardens 50p always seems to be at the top of that index and it's really the holy grail I guess of change collecting. It's certainly pretty hard to come by and there are only 210,000 of them out there which is really low especially when you consider that the next rarest 50p in circulation is the Beatrix Potter one which is 1.4 million. The Olympic ones are rare too.

"So it's a really big jump up from 210,000 to 1.4 million but it also means that it's really tricky to come by and especially when you consider a lot of collectors, if they found it, they've been keeping hold of that. It's currently selling on the second market for well over face value, sometimes you see listed for upwards of around £200."

Which coins to look out for

2011 Olympic Triathlon 50p coin, which has been revealed as one of the rarest 50p coins in circulation (PA)

Rachel has said that any of the Olympic 50p coins are popular with collectors, explaining it was the coin that "kickstarted the craze and the nation's love of collecting. Those were celebrating the London Olympics and the mintage figure for each of those are really quite low, they're sort of around the 1.1 million to two million mark which although it sounds like a lot when you consider the population of the UK, it's actually a really small number.

"The Beatrix Potter is actually a lot rarer than first considered so they're definitely ones to look out for. Not only are they rare because of the mintage figure but because of the collecting theme around Beatrix Potter. They've almost inspired a new generation of collectors to come and join the hobby because of the Beatrix Potter and Peter Rabbit theme. They're synonymous with children's literature and it's been a way in for the younger generation to get excited about coin collecting."

Rachel also said it's worth checking your 20ps because although they may not have the same commemorative designs as 50ps, some of them can have faults making them worth more.

She explained: "The 20 pences that were released in 2008 are ones to keep an eye out for. When there was a changeover of design, the coins got overlooked I think in the design process and some coins were accidentally struck without a date on them because where the date had originally been on one side of the design, then changed to another.

"One of the dies for striking the coins wasn't changed over and it meant that no date was stamped onto the coin, but only a few of them were actually stamped before the mistake was realised."

Why you should start collecting King Charles III coins

Thanks to the new monarch, now is the ideal time to start looking out for certain coins. Rachel said: "I think at the moment I would always be talking to collectors about the fact we have the new monarch changeovers.

"We've got the new King Charles the third 50p's which entered circulation in December and although quite a large number eventually will enter circulation around the nine million mark, the fact that this is a Numismatic first I think it's going to be incredibly sought after - particularly in years to come so now is the time to start your King Charles collection.

"Make sure you've got the very first one and then be looking out for the others and build up a complete collection as you go."