Tiny lines obscuring pattern on 50p coin sends price skyrocketing to £3,000 – most people wouldn’t spot it

THE 50p in your wallet could be worth a whopping £3,000 - after one sold online for a small fortune.

A collection of coins were released in celebration of the London 2012 Olympics featuring various sports.

The Aquatics 50p is decorated with a goggle-wearing swimmer moving through water, but 600 of the coins were made with a distorted design.

The lines of the water completely covered the swimmer's face, making them incredibly rare and worth a pretty penny 12 years later.

There was a bidding war on one of the 50ps on eBay, which have been dubbed Water Lines Over Face coins.

History buffs fought over the rare coin, with the highest bidder parting with £3,766.

There were 74 bids on the item, which was in mint condition and placed in a glass box.

The standard Aquatics 50p was issued by  the Royal Mint, the official maker of British coins, in 2011.

The Olympic coin collection had images of the 29 different sports that athletes competed against in London.

A coin expert, known as 'Christopher Collects' on YouTube, said: "The Aquatics 50p with the lines over the face is about as rare as UK 50p coins get.

"It blows even the Kew Gardens 50p out of the water.

"It would be the centerpiece of any 50p coin collection within what is already a really popular set of Olympic coins."

The error coin is like plenty of others, such as the Lord Kitchener £2 and 1983 "New Pence", which are so valuable due to them being manufactured incorrectly.

Another of the Water Lines Over Face coins fetched £1,500 in an auction in Wiltshire in May.

Kimberly Day, a coin expert from RWB, who held the auction, said: "Only a few hundred examples with this rare design variation are believed to have been released.

"We're delighted that this coin has raised such a sum, it's a fair price for such a rare coin and we believe it's value will only increase over time."

A coin is usually classed as rare if a limited amount were struck, or a manufacturing error occurred when they were being made.

A low mintage figure, which is set by The Royal Mint, relates to how many of a coin were made.

Generally, the lower that figure, the more buyers are willing to pay for it, although this isn't always the case.

You can find out what coins are rare and how they look on The Royal Mint's website.

The Change Checker website has scarcity indices too - these tell you how many of a particular coin were minted.

When it comes to error coins, how much you'll get for them varies from piece to piece.