While you might not use cash as much as you once did, it’s sometimes useful to have a bit of change handy and you might even earn yourself a small fortune for holding on to that change.

Lots of people find rare and valuable coins and sell them on to try and make a few quid so it’s worth checking what’s lying around your home.

An eBay seller in Wigan has sold a 50p coin for £11.50 and it even started a mini bidding war as 16 bids were placed with people hoping for it to become theirs.

The 50p coin is a valuable one and has a Beatrix Potter character on the tail side and the late Queen Elizabeth’s portrait on the head side.

The Bolton News: The Flopsy Bunny 50p coin is a valuable oneThe Flopsy Bunny 50p coin is a valuable one (Image: eBay)

A sweet Flopsy Bunny features on this coin and it’s dated 2018 on the reverse.

The Royal Mint has released many collections of coins to celebrate milestones and well-known people, franchises and more.

The Mint has released a range of 50p coins celebrating Beatrix Potter’s stories including ones that feature Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, Tom Kitten, Jemima Puddle-Duck and more.

Rarest 50p coins in circulation in the UK

The rarest is the Kew Gardens 50p which was designed to mark the 250th anniversary of the gardens in 2009. Only 210,000 coins were ever minted with this design.

The Kew Gardens 50p sells for £156.25 on average, but one seller received over £700 for one when they sold it on eBay.

The other rarest coins stem predominantly from the 2012 Olympics, with the wrestling, football and judo coins among the most valuable. Only 1.1 million of each of these coins were produced.

Five incredibly rare and valuable British coins

Flopsy Bunny and Peter Rabbit designs which were produced in 2018 are also highly valuable.

Recommended reading:

These coins - 1.4 million of which were minted - depict the characters from Beatrix Potter’s novels and celebrate the life of the English writer and these sell for around £5.

In 2019, 500 million coins were produced, with three new 50p designs.

These included one of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Paddington Bear at St Paul's Cathedral and the Tower of London.