Sarah G

Hi Ausburger Congratulations on your design. I have been studying the olympic coins for months now and I am fascinated with them. Thank you for replying back. I have also managed to contact the lady who designed the fencing coin. I had believed everyone received a gold coin as their prize for winning. Who did not receive a gold coin. That was very unfair on them. I know Florence went to the mint in October 2009 to press the first coin for hers. A gold proof set is kept at the Royal Mint Museum but they will not disclose which date is on the coin. Are you aware that 2 original folders were produced. Like the aquatics, they changed the design of the completer medallion as originally I believe it was going to be another 50p. Due to the change in design they could not release the folder with the design so the first folders produced are without the completer medallion insert. It was just left blank.

The reason I am so interested to know whether Florence is a 2009 or 2011 coin as they state the high jump coin as a 2009 coin in their mintage figures. Therefore as the coins are just circulated coins in a presentation pack it in theory makes the 2009 coin the coin with the least mintage. It also makes the 2009 coin the original coin! I know there were 2.2 million produced in 2011. I also know it is a grey area with presentation pack coins and circulated coins. My argument with the mint is that they will not state in either circulated or commemorative figures. The other interesting fact is they never put the 2009 coin in the 40th anniversary set. Kew and the shield went in but not the olympic coin. The aquatics is slightly different as that was an error and the high jump is mintage figures. However I would love to know which coin he has out of interest!

This predecimal forum and the blue peter coin is mentioned in the daily mail. Rubbish at linking. If you go to the money page of the daily mail and the article is there. Has pictures and quotes from the page. Hopefully someone can link. Does any one on this site have a connection with the Royal mint museum.. All I want to know is which coin Florence Jackson was given and is sitting in the Royal Mint museum! I have emailed and phoned the museum and Royal mint and they will not give the information out.

I am on the fifty pence Facebook group and found some really interesting information. I have found 2 of the designers and both their coins are 2011 which ties in with the fact that the designs were released later. Another interesting fact was that Florence Jackson was not at the design launch in 2011. She went in 2009. I think her coin is 2009 which makes the blue peter coin the original design. Not as rare as the aquatic one but that was a error not a mintage. The original mintage for the original olympic 2009 would be the lowest ever. just got to find Florence Jackson to confirm what her gold coin is!

I have given up finding info from the royal mint so worth having a go on this site. Does anyone on this site know Augsburger on the world coin forum. He was the one who designed the equestrian coin and I would be interested to know what date his coin has as he should have one of the gold ones. He also knows alot about the olympic coins. The best thing would be is to find the girl who designed the coin and ask her what date is on it!

I am rubbish at linking. I am hoping someone more savvy with a computer can link. I have been trying to get a straight answer from RM with little success but decided to let people know if they didn't already. If you go onto the Royal Mint website. The winner of the blue peter coin design competition is revealed. You will see that Florence produced her first coin. All competition winners received the first coin in gold. This will be dated 2009 as occurred in October 2009. It states in the article that this coin is the first. It also states on the website 2009. If florence coin is the 2009 as stated then the 2009 coin is the lowest mintage circulation coin. 2011 is a reprint like the 2009 16 coin set. The 2009 blue peter coin is the lowest circulation coin.

Have you had any response Shane. I am still waiting for my response over 3 months as to why it is not included in either the official circulated or uncirculated coin figures. Good news the last Blue Peter coin sold for £54.99 plus £2 p&p. Nearly going to £60! Strange thing is Kew gardens is still going up and up as well!

I will let you know if I find out any more info. I am determined to try and find out as it fascinates me. The last Blue Peter coin sale was £49.95 so it can be nearly classed as reaching £50. Most are on eBay now for over £50. Sarah

Hi Ian The coin I am referring to is the athletics coin 2009 (blue peter coin) and 2011 (2.2 million athletic coin) Its the 2 different coin covers that the royal mint and royal mail did to celebrate the olympics. (coin cover 1 and coin cover 30 - both athletics with 2 different pictures. One is coin cover 1 and the other coin cover 30. The royal mint and royal mail did a series of 30 coin covers to celebrate the olympics. The first coin cover was the athletic one with the 2 runners on the front. This coin cover was produced very early on as has a very low olympic hologram. This coin cover contains the 2011 athletic coin. In 2011 the royal mint and royal mail got together to produce another coin cover to celebrate the athletics to make up the 30th cover. This was produced in 2011 and has a picture of a high jumper on the front of the cover. However, it has come to light that this coin cover with the high jumper produced in 2011 contains the 2009 "blue peter coin" I personally haven't seen one and wanted to try and get one to have a look. Apparently someone has opened it and it does contain the 2009 blue peter coin. Hopefully this makes sense even though the royal mint/royal mail seem to have very strange procedures. The problem is you cannot see the coin in the cover. You have to open the cover up to find out whether it is a 2009 or 2011 coin! Sarah Will add a photo of the runner coin cover in next post to try and explain further.

BHX7 Does your folder barcode end in 3587 or 5360. I am assuming your folder is 5360 as it has the later LA number. My completer medallions start with L845 and are silver with the stadium on as well Has anyone got any completer medallions with a lower L number that they could check?

I would be interested to know what hologram numbers people have on their blue peter coin. I have quite a few and the hologram numbers vary alot i.e. more than 19k. The hologram number was given to all olympic products (not just coins) to help prevent fraud. The lower the number, the earlier they were produced. This is important for olympic products as you can tell how early they were produced during the olympic time. I know it shouldn't change the product but some of the royal mint olympic products do seem to be different? e.g. One of my blue peter coins has the hologram number L02086459 whereas another have number L0351563. Others vary significantly within these numbers so all 19k not produced at the same time if that hopefully makes sense. I appreciate some people might think this being picky as the coins should be supposedly the same. However, from the research I have done this may not be the case. However, I need to try and get more info. This can be tricky as I didn't start collecting until earlier this year so was not around at the time the olympic coins were released and I am not an expert hence why any help people can give is much appreciated. Originally I believed there could be fake olympic coins but the evidence suggests that different releases occurred. All my blue peter coins have been bought through eBay not through original Royal Mint which makes it more difficult as well to work out numbers.

There are 2 folders types of the original folder which held the carded olympic coins. (there are other folders that hold just the coins) They have two different barcodes. The first type is barcode 5026177253587. This barcode is the folder which does not have the completer medallion in yellow writing either at the front of the folder or within the folder. The barcode 5026177245360 is the newer folder which has the writing in yellow for the completer coin and mentions the completer coin at the front of the folder. Hope that makes sense. Not sure how many of each folder have been made. Have asked the question to the Royal Mint which they are looking into further. The holograms also help to define the age of the product. Each olympic product sold had a hologram with a number starting 000000. The lower the number, the earlier the product. The aquatic coin with lines and the blue peter coin have very low numbers. (bear in mind this hologram was used for all olympic products not just coins!) They then ran out of numbers so future products started LA000000. I am trying to find people who knew more about these products at the time. I know there were rumours of withdrawn products due to quality control. I have asked this question to the Royal Mint and they state that this did not occur. It is interesting that there are two types of completer coin. I have found out that when the original folders were started they did not know what the completer coin would be. It could not be decided whether it was another 50p coin or a medallion type coin. Hence why the original folders were done without any writing.

Hi I am hoping that there may be someone who can help me with some queries about the original olympic folders (the coin folders that holds the carded coins). Unfortunately, I only started collecting recently and I wondered if anyone could give me some detailed information. I am aware that 2 editions of the carded folders were made with different barcodes. These folders are different in that the completer medallion writing is missing. I am hoping that someone may know more information. I have contacted the Royal Mint who have now forwarded me onto the museum.