Hmmm. Now this is going to be a tough match….. and the main reason for this is because the UK Olympic fifty pences have a special place in the hearts of most coin collectors. The only problem is that the ‘newcomer’ Gibraltar fifty pences have a lot going for them too.
Now let’s be honest here before going any further; yes, it was a whole lot of fun collecting all twenty-nine Olympic fifty pences (back in the day when you could still find pictures in your change lol) but not all of the actual designs are so great. A few such as ‘Triathlon’, ‘Judo’, ‘Basketball’ and ‘Gymnastics’ are genuinely good designs. But others like ‘Fencing’, ‘Boccia’ and ‘Pentathlon’ are proper bob. I apologise for this brutality, but for this to be a fair fight, honesty is of paramount importance.
So out of the twenty-nine coins only a few are actually decent….. whereas the Gibraltar ones (of which there are only five) are all strong designs and are very well drawn too. Why couldn’t we have had a proper good cycling fifty pence? Instead of having to make do with the crap outline of a guy and some ‘speed lines’ in his wake? I despair. And then there is that most dreaded one of all – ‘Archery’…
Shudder and shiver me timbers.
To me, it would appear that ten years on, the Gibraltar releases have blown the UK ones clean out of the water. Sorry guys, but all five designs are strong and incredibly well drawn. I am not at all keen on the colour versions as I think they look well tacky, but I am able to (thankfully) concentrate on the bog standard cupro-nickel ones – which is a fair comparison to the UK coins.
Considering the Gibraltar fifty pences were created to celebrate an absolute shambles of an Olympics no-one wanted to happen at all, it is no great surprise they have been largely overlooked. But I am quite sure that in years to come they will be very sought after indeed. In a time when collectors have forgotten about the Covid beleaguered farce of an event and can instead appreciate just how good these coins actually are.
© Article and images (except where stated) copyright Mik Smith 2022
