2017 Tom Kitten 50p
The 2017 Tom Kitten 50p is a circulating 50p with 9.5 million made. Value band: face value. Here is how to recognize it, what makes one worth more and what to check on yours.
- Year
- 2017
- Circulation mintage
- 9,500,000
- Value band
- Face value
- Designer
- Emma Noble
Original illustration of the coin's shape and metal. Tap to flip. Not a picture of the actual design.
Face value · Small premium · Collector premium · Significant rarity. We use bands because prices change daily.
What is a 2017 Tom Kitten 50p worth?
9.5 million were made, so the 2017 Tom Kitten 50p is easy to find. A circulated one is worth face value; collectors pay a little more only for uncirculated coins and coins still in their original Royal Mint pack.
What would make yours worth more:
- Uncirculated condition with no scratches or contact marks
- Original Royal Mint pack or presentation folder
- A genuine mint error, confirmed by an expert
For market prices, look at recent sold results for the same coin in the same condition, not asking prices.
Quick answers
- Is the 2017 Tom Kitten 50p rare?
- No. 9.5 million were made, so circulated examples are worth face value.
- How many 2017 Tom Kitten 50p coins were made?
- 9,500,000 were struck for circulation.
- Who designed the 2017 Tom Kitten 50p?
- The design is credited to Emma Noble.
- What is the 2017 Tom Kitten 50p made of?
- Cupronickel (75% copper, 25% nickel). It weighs 8.0 g and measures 27.3 mm, with a seven-sided (equilateral curve heptagon) shape.
- Is the 2017 Tom Kitten 50p still legal tender?
- Yes. Every 27.3 mm 50p, including commemoratives, is legal tender in the UK.
Why the 2017 Tom Kitten 50p was made
Tom Kitten is the scruffy young cat from The Tale of Tom Kitten, published in 1907. His mother, Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit, scrubs and dresses Tom and his sisters Mittens and Moppet in their best clothes because she is expecting visitors. The kittens are sent into the garden to keep clean, which of course goes badly. Tom bursts his buttons, the clothes come off and a family of puddle-ducks walks away wearing them. Potter set the story around Hill Top, the Lake District farmhouse she bought in 1905. The house and garden appear in the pictures.
Tom was one of the four characters chosen when the Royal Mint extended its Beatrix Potter 50p series into 2017. Collector versions of his coin went on sale in the summer, after Mr. Jeremy Fisher and before Benjamin Bunny. The circulation mintage was 9.5 million, the lowest of the 2017 characters. That is still a large number by any standard, but it means Tom turns up in change a little less often than his companions from that year.
How to recognize it
Tom Kitten is shown on the reverse with his name, drawn from Potter's illustrations of him in his too-tight clothes. He is the only cat in the 2017 group, which makes him easy to pick out from the rabbits and the frog. Look for the 2017 date and the name TOM KITTEN to be sure. The adaptation is by Emma Noble, the Royal Mint designer who worked on all the Beatrix Potter 50ps. On the other side is Jody Clark's portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. The circulating coin is struck in cupronickel with no color, so any painted example came from someone outside the mint. It measures 27.3 mm across, like every 50p made since 1997.
The other side carries Jody Clark's portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, introduced in 2015 and the last of her reign.
2017 Tom Kitten 50p by the numbers
In mintage terms the 2017 Tom Kitten 50p ranks 64th lowest of 76 circulating 50p coins with a published mintage. The next scarcer is the 2004 Roger Bannister 50p (9.03 million); the next more common is the 2022 Queen Elizabeth II Memorial 50p (9.6 million).
For scale, the most common is the 1973 EEC Hands 50p with 89.8 million, about 9.4 times as many. The scarcest is the 1992 Single Market 50p with 109,000, 87 times fewer than this one.
It was released in 2017 alongside 4 other circulating 50p designs: the Isaac Newton (1.8 million), the Mr Jeremy Fisher (9.9 million), the Peter Rabbit (19.9 million) and the Benjamin Bunny (25 million). 1 of them had a smaller run.
Within the circulating Beatrix Potter 50p coins, it ranks 9th scarcest, behind the Flopsy Bunny, Peter Rabbit and Mrs Tittlemouse and others.
What to check on your 2017 Tom Kitten 50p
- Confirm the design. The reverse should match the Tom Kitten described above and carry the date 2017; similar designs from other years are a common mix-up.
- Weigh it if you can: a genuine 27.3 mm 50p weighs 8.0 g. Copies are often light, slightly soft in detail or the wrong color.
- Ignore painted or colored versions sold online as special editions. Color added after the coin left the Mint does not make it a Royal Mint issue and does not add collector value.
- Look at the surfaces under a bright light. Coins straight from a pack have unbroken luster; change-worn coins show scuffs on the high points of the portrait and design.
Tom Kitten's 9.5 million mintage was the lowest of the four 2017 Beatrix Potter coins, yet it is still common by 50p standards. A circulated coin is a face value coin. What makes one stand out is condition: Tom's face and buttons are the high points, so a coin that still shows them sharply is a better keeper for a set. The Royal Mint also sold the design as a brilliant uncirculated coin in a presentation pack. Those pack coins look almost untouched, with clean fields, while coins from change have rubbing, small dents and a softer shine.
Mintage chart
Specifications
| Country | United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Denomination | 50 pence |
| Issuer | Royal Mint |
| Year | 2017 |
| Circulation mintage | 9,500,000 |
| Composition | Cupronickel (75% copper, 25% nickel) |
| Weight | 8.0 g |
| Diameter | 27.3 mm |
| Shape | Seven-sided (equilateral curve heptagon) |
| Edge | Plain |
| Designer | Emma Noble |
| Portrait | Clark |
Other 2017 50p coins
| Coin | Circulation mintage | Value band |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 Benjamin Bunny 50p | 25,000,000 | Face value |
| 2017 Peter Rabbit 50p | 19,900,000 | Face value |
| 2017 Mr Jeremy Fisher 50p | 9,900,000 | Face value |
| 2017 Isaac Newton 50p | 1,801,500 | Face value |
Frequently asked questions
How many Tom Kitten 50p coins are there?
The Royal Mint struck 9.5 million Tom Kitten 50ps for circulation in 2017. It was the lowest mintage of that year's four Beatrix Potter characters but is still a common coin overall, easy enough to find in change.
Is the Tom Kitten 50p legal tender?
Yes. It is a normal 27.3 mm cupronickel 50p and remains legal tender, so it can be spent like any other 50p. Most people who find one keep it for a Beatrix Potter set instead of spending it.
Mintage figures: Fifty pence (British coin) (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0), compiled from Royal Mint figures. How we build these pages.