2013 Christopher Ironside 50p
The 2013 Christopher Ironside 50p is a circulating 50p with 7 million made. Value band: face value. Here is how to recognize it, what makes one worth more and what to check on yours.
- Year
- 2013
- Circulation mintage
- 7,000,000
- Value band
- Face value
- Designer
- Christopher Ironside
Original illustration of the coin's shape and metal. Tap to flip. Not a picture of the actual design.
Face value · Small premium · Collector premium · Significant rarity. We use bands because prices change daily.
What is a 2013 Christopher Ironside 50p worth?
7 million were made, so the 2013 Christopher Ironside 50p is easy to find. A circulated one is worth face value; collectors pay a little more only for uncirculated coins and coins still in their original Royal Mint pack.
What would make yours worth more:
- Uncirculated condition with no scratches or contact marks
- Original Royal Mint pack or presentation folder
- A genuine mint error, confirmed by an expert
For market prices, look at recent sold results for the same coin in the same condition, not asking prices.
Quick answers
- Is the 2013 Christopher Ironside 50p rare?
- No. 7 million were made, so circulated examples are worth face value.
- How many 2013 Christopher Ironside 50p coins were made?
- 7,000,000 were struck for circulation.
- Who designed the 2013 Christopher Ironside 50p?
- The design is credited to Christopher Ironside.
- What is the 2013 Christopher Ironside 50p made of?
- Cupronickel (75% copper, 25% nickel). It weighs 8.0 g and measures 27.3 mm, with a seven-sided (equilateral curve heptagon) shape.
- Is the 2013 Christopher Ironside 50p still legal tender?
- Yes. Every 27.3 mm 50p, including commemoratives, is legal tender in the UK.
Why the 2013 Christopher Ironside 50p was made
Christopher Ironside, born in 1913, was the artist behind the reverses of Britain's original decimal coins. He won the competition to design them in the 1960s and produced Britannia for the 50p, along with the crown, the crowned portcullis, the Prince of Wales feathers, the thistle and the crowned lion on the smaller denominations. Those designs stayed in use for decades. His seated Britannia appeared on the 50p from 1969 until 2008, when Matthew Dent's Royal Shield series replaced it.
To mark the centenary of his birth in 2013, the Royal Mint went back to his work and struck a design he had made for the 50p showing the royal coat of arms. It gave a new outing to an Ironside design that had not been used on the coin before. Seven million were struck for circulation. The coin shared the year with the Benjamin Britten 50p, so 2013 produced two very different special 50ps for two men born a century earlier. Among collectors of coin design history, this one has a loyal following.
How to recognize it
The reverse shows the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom, the heraldic arms of the monarch, in a formal and detailed style. It feels quite different from the flowing Britannia that Ironside created for the original 50p. Because royal heraldry appears on many British coins, the date 2013 and the full coat of arms on a seven-sided coin are your best clues. On the other side is Ian Rank-Broadley's portrait of the Queen. The coin is 27.3 mm wide and has a plain edge. The designer is Christopher Ironside himself, so the coin honors the person who drew it.
The other side carries Ian Rank-Broadley's portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, used from 1998 to 2015.
2013 Christopher Ironside 50p by the numbers
Measured by how many were made, the 2013 Christopher Ironside 50p ranks 55th lowest of 76 circulating 50p coins with a published mintage. The next scarcer is the 2016 Beatrix Potter 50p (6.9 million); the next more common is the 2010 Girlguiding 50p (7.41 million).
For scale, the most common is the 1973 EEC Hands 50p with 89.8 million, about 13 times as many. The scarcest is the 1992 Single Market 50p with 109,000, 64 times fewer than this one.
2013 brought 1 other circulating 50p design: the Benjamin Britten (5.3 million). The 2013 Christopher Ironside 50p was the most plentiful of the year.
What to check on your 2013 Christopher Ironside 50p
- Confirm the design. The reverse should match the Christopher Ironside described above and carry the date 2013; similar designs from other years are a common mix-up.
- Weigh it if you can: a genuine 27.3 mm 50p weighs 8.0 g. Copies are often light, slightly soft in detail or the wrong color.
- Ignore painted or colored versions sold online as special editions. Color added after the coin left the Mint does not make it a Royal Mint issue and does not add collector value.
- Look at the surfaces under a bright light. Coins straight from a pack have unbroken luster; change-worn coins show scuffs on the high points of the portrait and design.
Seven million is an ordinary mintage for a commemorative 50p, so worn Ironside coins are face value pieces. The design has a following among people who collect the work of particular coin artists and it sits well beside a Britannia 50p from his original series. Heraldic detail is fine and shallow, so it wears early; check the lines inside the shield and the edges of the small figures. An uncirculated example looks crisp with a bright field, while a coin from change typically shows flattened detail.
Mintage chart
Specifications
| Country | United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Denomination | 50 pence |
| Issuer | Royal Mint |
| Year | 2013 |
| Circulation mintage | 7,000,000 |
| Composition | Cupronickel (75% copper, 25% nickel) |
| Weight | 8.0 g |
| Diameter | 27.3 mm |
| Shape | Seven-sided (equilateral curve heptagon) |
| Edge | Plain |
| Designer | Christopher Ironside |
| Portrait | Rank-Broadley |
Other 2013 50p coins
| Coin | Circulation mintage | Value band |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 Benjamin Britten 50p | 5,300,000 | Face value |
Frequently asked questions
Who was Christopher Ironside?
He was the British artist who designed the reverses of the first decimal coins, including the Britannia 50p used from 1969 to 2008. The 2013 coin marks 100 years since his birth and uses one of his own 50p designs.
How many Christopher Ironside 50p coins were made?
The Royal Mint struck 7,000,000 for circulation in 2013. That is a typical figure for a modern commemorative 50p, so circulated examples are common and only a sharp uncirculated coin is likely to draw collector interest.
Mintage figures: Fifty pence (British coin) (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0), compiled from Royal Mint figures. How we build these pages.