The Crappest Ever Fifty Pences

Right since 1973, when The Royal Mint had the brainwave of putting pictures on the reverse of coins, there have been some genuinely impressive designs.  The first we saw, of course, was ‘EC Hands’ in the aforementioned year.  And then, in 1992 (yes, it took THAT long for them to think of another commemorative coin) we had the much revered and ultra-low mintage ‘EEC Presidency’.

Little by little, fifty pences with a picture on their reverse began to become ‘normal’.  By the early 2000’s it was fairly standard for us to get a UK release with a different design each year.  And things ticked along in this manner until we reached 2011…. when a whopping twenty-nine different fifty pences were released into circulation to celebrate the London Olympics.

Of course, since the first wave of Beatrix Potter in 2016, The Royal Mint have been utterly relentless with their picture coins.  In fact, to have a whole year go by now without one would simply be unthinkable.  The reality is that between five and twenty different designs are being put out every single year.

On one level this is all great news for numismatists.  And this is simply because new releases are always exciting to a collector.  However, the bad news is that the majority of fifty pences are now ‘purchase only’ – meaning it costs a small fortune to keep up to date.  It would appear that RM will now only put a picture into circulation as a token gesture.  This way they are still seen to be doing something.  To make matters worse, a lot of more modern releases have been….. well….. crap.  Yes, this may sound a bit harsh, but it really is true.  You see, many pictures are now churned out so very quickly that far less attention is placed on artistic quality.  To put things in a nutshell, most present day fifties reek of mass production.  Which is a very sad thing indeed  🙁

Here are a some of the worst designs of all (as far as I am concerned anyhow) –

 

Paddington (all four) (2018/2019)

Having grown up in a time when Paddington was a regular treat on TV, I was utterly appalled to see that The Royal Mint had based their coins not on the original Paddy, but on the one from the 2014 movie instead.  Doh!

The result?  A bunch of coins resembling a character who looks far more dog than bear.

NOOOOOOO!!!!!

And since these designs were very clearly created with colour versions in mind, the bog standard brilliant uncirculated ones mean he looks blurry, ill-defined and very much that his favourite pastime is high speed chasing of parked vehicles.  Yes, his snout looks about as three dimensional as a sheet of baking parchment.  Utterly disappointing as this could have been such a lovely quartet of coins.

 

Beatrix Potter – Wave II (2017)

 The first Potter coins were nice.  They were tastefully done and just about everyone was excited about finding them in their change.  And then it all began to go horribly wrong.  Yes, before it even got to the point of The Royal Mint doing the whole thing to death…..

When you look at the second bunch of coins in the collection you cannot help but think they fall a little short.  Benjamin Bunny looks a jumbled mess in plain cupro-nickel, Jeremy Fisher is just too big and in your face, Peter Rabbit is nondescript and boring (and far more boring when what felt like eighteen zillion were released into circulation), whilst Tom Kitten looks like something from ‘The Excorcist’.  Proper bloody scary and I mean it!

 

Dinosaurs (all SIX of them) (2020/2021)

Sure (before anyone splits hairs) the first three were ‘Tales of the Earth – The Dinosauria Collection’ whilst the second ones were, ‘The Mary Anning Collection’.  However, they are basically all the same (Jurassic) animal and may as well have all been one series.  They are also all naff.

Why oh why oh why (just for starters) did RM take it upon themselves to choose six giant lizards that no-one apart from a seasoned archaeologist (or perhaps a cryptozoologist) would ever have heard of????  I mean, forgive me if I am wrong, but the target audience for these would have been children.  ‘Mummy! Please can I have a Temnodontosaurus fifty pence for my birthday?’.  Sorry, I just cannot see that working somehow…..

The pictures really ain’t in any way great either.  There are strange objects on the borders of some which appear to resemble fossilised turd and….. just to top it all off….. the 2021 ‘Diamorphodon’ (a feathery type of prehistoric junkie I am guessing, going by the name) looks very much like it is urinating as it arcs its way across the sky.  Apart from all that these coins are just great.

 

NOTE – when compiling a list of crap coins to write about I was honestly spoilt for choice.  I hope to God that The Royal Mint raise the bar a little with their choice of art as there was once a time when new UK designs were really good.  As things are, after writing this, I am seriously questioning why I bother to collect coins at all.  Things really are that grim with today’s releases.

 

And now…..

I go find my Prozac.

 

© Article is copyright of Ghost Writer 2022 an anonymous writer who lives in fear of being vaporised by lofty powers purely because of his opinions