The 100 Years of Girlguiding 50p was issued in 2010 to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Girl Guides., but how much is it worth today?
We’ve researched on eBay, and you can currently pick up one of these coins for around £1.83 in circulated condition according to the most recent values in 2022.
Let’s take a deeper dive into the coin and its design to see why it is worth more than face value to collectors!
Girlguiding 50p Mintage
The Girlguiding 50p had a mintage of 7,410,090 and was the only 50p coin introduced into circulation in 2010, the year following the introduction of the rarest 50p in circulation.
A mintage of around 7.5 million means that the Girlguiding 50p is not particularly rare. The lowest mintage of all 50p coins is 210,000, for example.
Other rare coins include a lot of the Olympic 50p coins such as the cycling 50p, which average around 2 million with some nearing the 1 million mark.
Were Any Other Versions Produced?
The Girlguiding 50p was also produced in silver proof, silver proof piedfort as well as gold in limited quantities for coin collectors:
| Specification | Mintage |
| Silver Proof | 2,879 |
| Silver Proof Piedfort | 1,298 |
| Gold Proof | 1,000 |
2019 Re-Issue Girl Guiding 50p
In 20129, the Royal Mint celebrated 50 years of the 50p with the release of a few uncirculated 50p coin sets.
The British Culture set featured 5 coins, and one of them was a re-issue of the 2010 Girl Guiding 50p, the other 50p coins in the set were the Kew Gardens 50p re-issue, Scouting 50p re-issue, Roger Bannister 50p re-issue as well as a standard new pence 50p.
This set was issued in proof, silver proof, silver proof piedfort and gold proof for which the mintages are summarised below.
| Specification | Mintage |
| Proof | 3,500 |
| Silver Proof | 1,969 |
| Silver Proof Piedfort | 1,220 |
| Gold Proof | 75 |
Design of the 100 Years of Girlguiding 50p
The Girl Guiding 50p features a reverse design inspired by the official Girl Guide logo created by Jonothan Evans and Donna Hainan, with the inscription ‘CELEBRATING ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF GIRLGUIDING UK’ around the edge.
The obverse design features a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II by Ian Rank-Broadley, and the coin is minted in cupro-nickel; more specifically 75% copper and 25% nickel. Generally speaking, the symmetry of the central design is very aesthetically pleasing and quite unique amongst 50p coins.
Why Was The Coin Minted?
The Girlguiding 50p was produced to celebrate 100 years of the Girl Guides.
The Girl Guides was formed in 1910 in the United Kingdom by Agnes Baden-Powell, the sister of Robert Baden-Powell.
Robert had previously served as a soldier in the Second Anglo-Boer War and had decided to form the Boy Scouts following his experience of seeing how useful young boys were during the war for smaller tasks such as carrying messages.
On his return to Britain, Robert formed camping trips for boys and ultimately wrote a book called ‘Scouting for Boys’, which inspired others to take part in scouting.
There is also a Scouting 50p coin that was produced in 2007.
It was not until after a Boy Scout rally in 1909 in London that Robert noticed hundreds of young girls joining in the march. Prior to this, some girls had begun to take part in scouting activities, going against the general expectation of women at that time.
Robert decided to form a Girl Guide section following the publicity that followed the march and asked his sister Agnes to oversee it.
Since that time the Girl Guides has expanded all over the world, including countries such as America, Poland and France.
Girl Guide Error Coin
There have been reports of an ‘error Girl Guiding 50p coin’, where the supposed error is a different shaped star located within the trefoil logos in the central design.
The problem with any error coins is that they are extremely hard to verify. Anybody is free to list items on eBay, and coins especially can cause quite the stir in the general media. News outlets are very quick to jump to publish articles about coins that are merely listed for high values but not actually sold.
Furthermore, as we have seen in our Battle of Hastings 50p article, it becomes extremely hard to verify if any amount of money has changed hands even if a product can be displayed as sold on eBay.
So, what’s the lesson to learn here? If you want to purchase any coin, always conduct your due diligence. Look into the market and take your time before you make any decision, or you could find yourself easily getting ripped off.
eBay can be a great tool to find coins to add to your collection, just be wary when looking for particularly valuable coins.