Your Guide to Olympic 50p Coins

With the Winter Olympics 2026 in full swing, we decided to look back at the 50p craze from the London 2012 Olympics, the collection that sparked a collecting frenzy that still continues today.

The Royal Mint issued a total of 29 Olympic 50p coins to celebrate London holding the Olympic Games in 2012. The first was issued in 2009, with the remaining coins issued in 2011 in anticipation for the games.

Each coin was designed by a member of the public as part of a nationwide competition.

The coins were issued in their millions so are generally not very rare. However, due to their popularity many have been taken out of circulation by collectors.

The rarest Olympic 50p coin is the Football coin, which cleverly explains the offside rule, it tends to value at around £8, other single coins sell for around £5 or less and a full set can go for around £70 to £90.

As time goes on and more collectors take the coins out of circulation, the value of these 50p coins will increase.

What is the Value of the Olympic 50p coins?

The values of the coins vary depending on the mintage. Many of them have a similar value. The archery and canoeing 50ps have an approximate value of £1.50.

While the athletics, badminton, boccia, cycling, equestrian and fencing 50ps value at around £1.75.

The basketball, boxing, volleyball and wheelchair rugby 50ps value at £2 and the goalball, gymnastics, handball, hockey, modern pentathlon, rowing, sailing, table tennis, taekwondo and weightlifting 50ps are worth £2.50.

And then finally the judo, shooting, tennis, triathlon and wrestling are valued between £3 and £10.

The Aquatics 50p coin

The common aquatics 50p is only valued at £1.75. However, there is a very rare version of this coin which has sold for just over £800 in the past!

The aquatics coin was redesigned to make the swimmer’s face more visible, but not before around 600 coins showing the original design were entered into circulation… cue the big coin hunt!

On the rare version, the wavy lines representing the water are seen crossing in front of the swimmer’s face, whilst the more common coin has the face at the front making it much clearer.

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According to the website the Fake Pound Coin Database, there are seven fake versions of the aquatics coin in circulation, so do be aware; if in doubt ask a coin dealer for a second opinion, and if you’re really not sure then only spend what you are willing to lose.

There have since been new collections of Olympic 50p coins including some that were released during the 2016 Rio Olympics. However, no collection has quite got the frenzy going as much as the London Olympics did.

The full collection can be found at The Westminster Collection as well as places like Amazon.

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