50 Pence - Elizabeth II 4th portrait Table Tennis (2011)

About the 2011 50 Pence - Elizabeth II – Table Tennis

The 2011 50 Pence - Elizabeth II – Table Tennis is a circulating 50 pence coin in the Olympic 50p (2011) series, struck in copper-nickel. It weighs 8g and measures 27.3mm across. Reverse design: Two hands holding table tennis bats, with ball and table in background, London 2012 logo above, denomination below.

1,737,500 were struck.

Common questions

History and design

The Table Tennis 50p is one of 29 designs issued for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, one for each sport, chosen through a design competition open to the general public. The royal proclamation setting out the designs came into force on 12 May 2010, and the coin is dated 2011.

The Royal Mint's figures give a circulating mintage of 1,737,500. Twelve of the 29 designs have lower figures and sixteen have higher ones, so it is the thirteenth scarcest of the series. It sits between Gymnastics (1,720,813) and Basketball (1,748,000). The scarcest design, Football, stands at 1,125,500 and the most common, Archery, at 3,345,500.

The reverse is by Alan Linsdell, described by the Royal Mint as a retired illustrator, and by his own account it was done in a hurry. Linsdell told the Royal Mint Museum that he set the competition advert aside, picked it up again the day before the closing date, and had to go out that afternoon.

With no time for research he sketched ideas in pencil on the side of a newspaper. To transfer the sketch to the entry template he took a yellow vase with a circular base from the window ledge and drew round it twice for the two bats. He then added handles, a hand on each, the table behind and a ball with a swoosh across it, and caught the first class post. He was, he said, "a bit surprised when it won".

The sport was an easy choice. Linsdell played from the age of eight to twenty-eight, including about three years for a team, and had returned to it after a heart problem ended his badminton.

The proclamation describes "two table tennis bats against the background of a table and net", with the London 2012 Paralympic logo above and 50 PENCE below. The obverse carries the fourth portrait of Queen Elizabeth II by Ian Rank-Broadley. The edge is plain.

Collecting notes

No recognised varieties or mint errors are documented for this coin. Marks, discolouration and flattened detail on a coin from change are wear, not errors.

On a used example, check the shading on the bats, the hands and the net behind them.

The Royal Mint has offered examples that it describes as struck for general circulation and later acquired from the secondary market. The 2010 proclamation also provided for the designs to be struck in gold, a separate issue from the 1,737,500 circulation coins.

The coin was made for general circulation and can still turn up in change. Another design the proclamation describes with the Paralympic logo is the Goalball 50p, one of the scarcer coins of the series at 1,615,500.