Rare buggy 50p coin sells for £140 on eBay

A RARE 50p coin with a special fault has sold on eBay for almost 300 times its face value.

50p on sale for £140 last month after 15 bidders jostled for it for their own.

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The error means that the final coin has been stamped twice, so eagle-eyed coin hunters may spot a faded copy of the design that appears slightly off the center of the original.

The coin is a 1982 manufactured copy of the 50p note featuring a Second Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on the reverse and aaa of Britannia on the reverse.

The coin itself is not even a legal tender anymore as its slightly larger diameter and design was scrapped in 1998 to make way for the modern 50ps we know today.

But that doesn’t mean it won’t continue to pass through hands today, and if you come across one in your change, you can also try selling it for mints.

Why is the coin rare?

The seller explains that this particular coin is the same as how it works due to a process known as mechanical doubling.

That is the cause of the error and usually occurs while the coin is being minted.

The Royal Mint produces between three million and four million coins a day, so things often go wrong.

The doubler will happen when an old die reverberates or shifts during attack, that means the coin is hit twice and we see that double ball or drop ball-like shape on the design – you don’t see a double, it’s just a mistake!

Machine duplication is usually isolated to a relatively small amount of money because it is a failure of the mechanism, so it will not necessarily affect all coins made from a particular die.

It can only cause errors on one coin or a few.

It’s music to the ears of passionate collectors, as low sums mean coins are rare and hard to find.

That usually means that sellers on auction sites like eBay will raise the price, or auctioneers will battle it out for their coins, steadily increasing in value.

Can I monetize other rare bug coins?

Most buggy coins still have legal bids so you can also easily come across one in your change and sell it.

A rare bug coin £1 Sold on eBay in October for £156, because it was missing part of the design.

Meanwhile, another coin in April on sale for £155 because it has upside down writing on its side.

So often coins, when faulty, will sell for hundreds of pounds and hundreds of times their face value.

If you are thinking of selling one yourself, get an imperfect coin verified by Royal mint to help put a value on it.

Online tools from change experts like Coin Hunter very useful to see how much it might also be worth.

You will also have an idea if it is legal or not because unfortunately there are many counterfeit money in circulation.

Usually when you compare others who have sold on eBay, a good indication that it’s a real deal is the number of bids on the listing.

The 50p bug we found had 25 bids placed in the 10 days it was active, so we can see that coin collectors are eager to cash in.

But remember, buyers can pull out of the sale which means they won’t sell for the price they say they are.