50 Pence - Elizabeth II Wheelchair Rugby Gold Proof (2011)

About the 2011 50 Pence - Elizabeth II Wheelchair Rugby – Gold Proof

The 2011 50 Pence - Elizabeth II Wheelchair Rugby – Gold Proof is a collector 50 pence coin in the Olympic 50p (2011) series, struck in 91.67% gold. It weighs 15.5g and measures 27.3mm across. Reverse design: Wheelchair rugby player in chair with ball, London 2012 logo above, denomination below.

Common questions

History and design

This is a collector version of the 50 Pence - Elizabeth II – Wheelchair Rugby. The history below is that coin's; the mintage, varieties and collecting notes on its page do not apply to this strike.

The Wheelchair Rugby 50p marks one of the Paralympic sports in the series of 29 coins struck for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Each sport has its own reverse, chosen through a competition open to the public, and every coin is dated 2011. The proclamation describing this design came into force on 12 May 2010.

The Royal Mint's figures give a circulating mintage of 1,765,500. Fifteen of the 29 designs are lower and 13 are higher, which puts it almost exactly in the middle. It falls between Sailing (1,749,500) and Hockey (1,773,500).

The coin carries the London 2012 Paralympic logo in place of the Olympic one. The May 2010 proclamation describes five designs that way: Archery, Boccia, Goalball, Table Tennis and Wheelchair Rugby. Of those, Goalball is the scarcest at 1,615,500.

The reverse is by Natasha Ratcliffe, who had two designs chosen for the series, this one and Handball. The proclamation describes it simply as "a wheelchair rugby player in action", with the Paralympic logo above and 50 PENCE below.

Ratcliffe told the Royal Mint Museum that she entered because she loves coins and medals. She had no background in the sport and worked from photographs, which showed "wheelchairs crashing into one another", dented wheel covers and players with their hands strapped up. She liked how "organic and raw" it looked.

Her answer was a close-up. The sport, she said, is about "the muscle and the hands and the determination in the face", so she decided to home in on those and "push everything else out of the coin". The Royal Mint notes the impact marks on the wheel guards. The obverse carries the fourth portrait of Queen Elizabeth II by Ian Rank-Broadley, in which she wears the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland tiara. The edge is plain.