A coin for every occasion: 25th August 1950 - Its a knock out!

Throughout the month of August, ill be looking back at historical moments from the past. From conflicts to coronations, sporting moments to royal memories, and famous firsts and lasts, with my love of all things shiny and precious, ill be trying to tie these events in with coins that have been created to commemorate these moments.

On this day in 1950, Sugar Ray Robinson KOs Jose Basora to win middleweight boxing title for first time after stepping up from welterweight.

He then retired in 1952, only to come back two and a half years later to regain the middleweight title in 1955.

Boxing is one of the most illustrious and historic sports in the Olympic Games with men sparring since the original Olympic Games in Ancient Greece. This coin was issued as part of a series of 29 Olympic 50ps in commemoration of London 2012, with each 50p featuring a different Olympic Sport. This coin features a pair of boxing gloves crossed over each other inside a boxing ring.

With 2,148,500 coins minted for circulation, its one of the less common 50 pence coins made for this series. An average condition coincwill cost you anywhere between £1.50 and £3:

INTERESTING FACT: As part of the Royal Mints attempt to get the public interested in these new coins, they set a competition to the people of the UK, to come up with unique designs they would use.

The winner of this coin design was Shane Abery from Reading. He only entered the competition in order to encourage his children to enter and didn’t consider submitting his design until friends and family encouraged him to do so. He wanted to ensure that the detail of the boxing gloves was as accurate as possible so he went and bought a pair to model his design on. In my opinion i think he did a very good job.

Sterling silver version

The Royal Mint also made a silver version of these coins. Coming in at just 8g of 0.925 silver, and with a mintage figure of just 5,872, these coins were available to purchase direct from the Mint for £55. These have now dropped in price by 50% and can be purchased on Ebay for about £26.

SOURCE: ROYAL MINT London coin company

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