Have you ever collected coins or have you got a piggy bank full of coins you’ve forgotten about?
Well, you might want to dig around and see if you’ve got a rare 50p coin as one has sold for 19x its face value on eBay.
The seller from Worcester listed the Alan Turing 50p coin on eBay and you might just have one of them lying around waiting for you to make a quick profit.
This coin celebrates the “life and legacy” of Alan Turing, according to the Royal Mint.
This Alan Turing coin was the Royal Mint’s final 50p coin to be added to its Innovation in Science series and the eBay seller in Worcester received £9.50 for the coin.
The coin, which has a Change Checker card behind it, was minted in 2022 and therefore has the late Queen Elizabeth’s portrait on one side.
The other “incorporates elements of codebreaking as a fitting tribute to Alan Turing”, the Royal Mint explains.
The design was created by experienced designers Matt Dent and Christian Davies.
Alan Turing was also honoured in 2021 when the Bank of England issued the new £50 note featuring the scientist which coincided with his birthday.
Who was Alan Turing?
Alan Turing was a “brilliant mathematician” and scientist who cracked the Enigma Code, Imperial War Museums explains.
The website adds: “The main focus of Turing’s work at Bletchley was in cracking the ‘Enigma’ code. The Enigma was a type of enciphering machine used by the German armed forces to send messages securely.
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“Although Polish mathematicians had worked out how to read Enigma messages and had shared this information with the British, the Germans increased its security at the outbreak of war by changing the cipher system daily. This made the task of understanding the code even more difficult.
“Turing played a key role in this, inventing – along with fellow code-breaker Gordon Welchman – a machine known as the Bombe. This device helped to significantly reduce the work of the code-breakers.
“From mid-1940, German Air Force signals were being read at Bletchley and the intelligence gained from them was helping the war effort.”
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