1981 was the last year in which the fifty pence carried the words NEW PENCE. From the following year Christopher Ironside’s design bore the inscription FIFTY PENCE, so the 1981 coins close the first version of the reverse begun in 1969. The final year’s mintage was 74,002,000.

«New pence» recalled the move to decimal currency: the fifty pence arrived back in 1969, ahead of the 1971 changeover, to replace the ten shilling note. The coin was unusual from the start, the world’s first equilateral curve heptagon coin, easy to recognise by touch and in a vending machine.

The reverse shows seated Britannia, a figure on British coins since 1672; the obverse shows Elizabeth II in Arnold Machin’s portrait, wearing the tiara that was Queen Mary’s wedding present. In a fifty pence date run this is a boundary piece: next to a 1982 coin it shows the change of wording on an unchanged design.

Grade VF: wear shows on the high points of the relief, but all main details and inscriptions, NEW PENCE included, are sharp.

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