Latest news with #BluePeter
Scottish Sun
a day ago
- Business
- Scottish Sun
Do you have this ultra rare 50p that sold for £198 after bidding war? Key details to check
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) A RARE 50p coin has sold for almost 400 times its original value after an intense bidding war. The coin sold for a huge £198.20 on eBay after receiving 20 bids. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 1 Only 19,722 of these rare Blue Peter branded coin packs were issued by the Royal Mint Credit: eBay It is a 2009 London 2012 Olympic Games Blue Peter 50p, which came sealed in its original packaging. The commemorative design was brought out to mark the 2012 London Olympics. Only 19,722 of these Blue Peter branded coin packs were issued by the Royal Mint and they were never brought into circulation. It's possible some have entered circulation since then, but they are still an ultra rare find. The coin, dated 2009, was the first of 29 officially licensed London 2012 Olympics coins. Its design was created by eight-year-old Florence Jackson from Bristol, who had entered her high jump-themed drawing into a Blue Peter competition. Her design was picked from an impressive 17,000 entries. She is still the youngest Brit to have her design used on a coin. These coins have been selling for large amounts of money on auction sites like eBay. One of them sold for a huge £320 earlier this year. Five 50ps that could earn you thousands More Olympic coins were brought into circulation in 2011 - including the Athletics 50p. Some 2.2million of the Athletics 50ps were issued in 2011, meaning these are much less rare and worth a lot less. So if you have this coin and want to check if it's worth much, you'll just need to check the year on it. Other Olympic coins to collect depict sports such as Taekwondo, Wheelchair Rugby, Gymnastics, Cycling, Boxing, and Archery. What makes a coin rare? If the right buyer comes along, rare coins can sell for hundreds or even thousands of pounds. Coins are generally considered rare if they have a low mintage figure - meaning not many of them were created. You can usually find out the mintage of a coin by checking The Royal Mint's official website. Some coins will also be classed as rare if there was a mistake made during the manufacturing process. These are often known as "error" coins. In some cases there may only be a handful of these available, making them incredibly rare and valuable. For example, one error coin dubbed the "lines over face" 50p, has been known to sell for £1,500 in the past. Most rare and valuable 50p coins WE reveal the Royal Mint's most rare and valuable 50p coins in circulation. Triathlon Minted in 2011, the Triathlon 50p depicts the same sport which featured in the 2012 Olympics. There are more than 1,160,000 of the coins in circulation. With over 200million 50ps circulating in the UK, that makes this coin quite a rare find. The highest recent sale we've found on eBay recently was £30 on June 21. Judo Judo is a popular sport that involves grappling with your opponent. But despite the design, it's not so easy to get a hold of this coin, of which there are just 1,161,500 in circulation. The piece was designed by David Cornell after he won a national competition. It was minted in 2011 and the highest bid we've seen on eBay was for £17.95 on June 21. Wrestling Wrestling was one of the first Olympic sports so it's not surprising that it features on one of the 50p pieces. The 2011 coin was designed by Roderick Enriquez, a graphic designer from Hammersmith, London. We've seen it sell for as much as £15 online so is worth digging around for. In recent months, one was sold on eBay for £11.95 on June 18. Football Of all the coins created to commemorate the 2012 Olympic Games, the 50p Football is among the rarest. It features an explanation of the controversial offside rule on it, with 1,125,000 produced. One sold for £20 on eBay on June 11, although it has been known to go for as much as £75 in the past. Kew Gardens The Kew Gardens 50p is the rarest of all the 50p pieces, with only 210,000 in circulation. They have been known to sell for as much as £895 on eBay before. The design was created by Christopher Le Brun RA and features the famous Chinese Pagoda with a leafy chamber that twists around the tower. The coin often sparks the interest of new coin collectors due to its rarity. The highest sale we found in recent weeks was £142 on June 22 with 23 bids. How to sell a rare coin There are three main ways you can sell rare coins - on eBay, Facebook, or in an auction. If you're selling on Facebook, make sure you post good quality pictures and price the piece as accurately as possible. Some platforms like eBay will let you see how much the same coin has sold for previously. Just search for the coin and then filter the results by sold items only. Alternatively you can sell at auction, which you can organise with The Royal Mint's Collectors Service. It has a team of experts who can help you authenticate and value your coin. You can get in touch via email and a member of the valuation team will get back to you. You will be charged for the service though - the cost varies depending on the size of your collection. In all three cases, it's worth bearing in mind a coin will only sell for what a bidder is willing to pay on that specific day.
The Sun
a day ago
- Sport
- The Sun
Do you have this ultra rare 50p that sold for £198 after bidding war? Key details to check
A RARE 50p coin has sold for almost 400 times its original value after an intense bidding war. The coin sold for a huge £198.20 on eBay after receiving 20 bids. 1 It is a 2009 London 2012 Olympic Games Blue Peter 50p, which came sealed in its original packaging. The commemorative design was brought out to mark the 2012 London Olympics. Only 19,722 of these Blue Peter branded coin packs were issued by the Royal Mint and they were never brought into circulation. It's possible some have entered circulation since then, but they are still an ultra rare find. The coin, dated 2009, was the first of 29 officially licensed London 2012 Olympics coins. Its design was created by eight-year-old Florence Jackson from Bristol, who had entered her high jump-themed drawing into a Blue Peter competition. Her design was picked from an impressive 17,000 entries. She is still the youngest Brit to have her design used on a coin. These coins have been selling for large amounts of money on auction sites like eBay. One of them sold for a huge £320 earlier this year. Five 50ps that could earn you thousands More Olympic coins were brought into circulation in 2011 - including the Athletics 50p. Some 2.2million of the Athletics 50ps were issued in 2011, meaning these are much less rare and worth a lot less. So if you have this coin and want to check if it's worth much, you'll just need to check the year on it. Other Olympic coins to collect depict sports such as Taekwondo, Wheelchair Rugby, Gymnastics, Cycling, Boxing, and Archery. What makes a coin rare? If the right buyer comes along, rare coins can sell for hundreds or even thousands of pounds. Coins are generally considered rare if they have a low mintage figure - meaning not many of them were created. You can usually find out the mintage of a coin by checking The Royal Mint 's official website. Some coins will also be classed as rare if there was a mistake made during the manufacturing process. These are often known as "error" coins. In some cases there may only be a handful of these available, making them incredibly rare and valuable. For example, one error coin dubbed the "lines over face" 50p, has been known to sell for £1,500 in the past. Most rare and valuable 50p coins WE reveal the Royal Mint's most rare and valuable 50p coins in circulation. Triathlon Minted in 2011, the Triathlon 50p depicts the same sport which featured in the 2012 Olympics. There are more than 1,160,000 of the coins in circulation. With over 200million 50ps circulating in the UK, that makes this coin quite a rare find. The highest recent sale we've found on eBay recently was £30 on June 21. Judo Judo is a popular sport that involves grappling with your opponent. But despite the design, it's not so easy to get a hold of this coin, of which there are just 1,161,500 in circulation. The piece was designed by David Cornell after he won a national competition. It was minted in 2011 and the highest bid we've seen on eBay was for £17.95 on June 21. Wrestling Wrestling was one of the first Olympic sports so it's not surprising that it features on one of the 50p pieces. The 2011 coin was designed by Roderick Enriquez, a graphic designer from Hammersmith, London. We've seen it sell for as much as £15 online so is worth digging around for. In recent months, one was sold on eBay for £11.95 on June 18. Football Of all the coins created to commemorate the 2012 Olympic Games, the 50p Football is among the rarest. It features an explanation of the controversial offside rule on it, with 1,125,000 produced. One sold for £20 on eBay on June 11, although it has been known to go for as much as £75 in the past. Kew Gardens The Kew Gardens 50p is the rarest of all the 50p pieces, with only 210,000 in circulation. They have been known to sell for as much as £895 on eBay before. The design was created by Christopher Le Brun RA and features the famous Chinese Pagoda with a leafy chamber that twists around the tower. The coin often sparks the interest of new coin collectors due to its rarity. The highest sale we found in recent weeks was £142 on June 22 with 23 bids. How to sell a rare coin There are three main ways you can sell rare coins - on eBay, Facebook, or in an auction. If you're selling on Facebook, make sure you post good quality pictures and price the piece as accurately as possible. Some platforms like eBay will let you see how much the same coin has sold for previously. Just search for the coin and then filter the results by sold items only. Alternatively you can sell at auction, which you can organise with The Royal Mint's Collectors Service. It has a team of experts who can help you authenticate and value your coin. You can get in touch via email and a member of the valuation team will get back to you. You will be charged for the service though - the cost varies depending on the size of your collection.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Richard Bacon reveals he's now reliant on heartburn tablets and vitamin injections to cope with the fallout from his heavy drinking - and quit AA because it's 'boring'
Richard Bacon has opened up about his long-running struggle with alcohol addiction - admitting he's sleep-deprived and reliant on heartburn tablets and vitamin injections to cope with the fallout from heavy drinking. Richard was famously just 18 months into his dream job at Blue Peter when he was fired at the age of 22 after admitting he took cocaine in a London nightclub in 1997. He has since been open about his continuing addiction struggles, recently opening up in a candid podcast chat. The presenter, now 49, said that he struggles to take accountability after a doctor told him his addiction is a disease inherited from his alcoholic mother. 'I went to see an alcohol doctor not long ago,' he said in the chat. 'I'm not out of control or anything, but I do think I should drink less. It affects your sleep and I get bored of being tired. 'I don't get enough sleep because I drink too much. I enjoy drinking.' Speaking on The Perfect Day podcast with Jessica Knappett, he added: 'You know you drink too much when you have a lot of Rennie. You know you're middle aged and you drink too much and you're popping those things.' The father-of-two also confessed to a regular habit of having vitamin B12 injections to cope with the after-effects of drinking too much. 'A vitamin B12 injection in your bum is famously good for hangovers. It brings you back to life,' he said. 'At the end of last year and for the first few months of this year, I had one a week. I've got this doctor - he's a bit like Michael Jackson's doctor - he just gives me anything I ask for.' 'At one point I had eight prescriptions and there wasn't really much wrong with me. He's just like, 'you're a bit deficient in this, bit deficient in that. Bit of this, bit of that.' A lot of it's sort of vitamin based, but weirdly prescription based. But it did work… He's terrific.' Richard was sacked from children's TV programme Blue Peter in 1998 after admitting to taking cocaine. To this day he is the only presenter in the history of the show to have been sacked. 'I got a Blue Peter job at 21 and then lost it at 22 and it was a big scandal at the time,' Richard reflected. 'I suppose there's something about getting caught for taking drugs where you can just come back, can't you? It's not one of the worst ones. 'There are far worse ones that make you look like a malicious person. If you beat someone up, do something aggressively sexual, say something racist... those reveal something about you that people don't like. I think the desire to get drunk and get high is something people generally can get over.' Now a successful creator of TV formats and the man behind shows like This Is My House and I Literally Just Told You, Richard admits his lifestyle can still get in the way. 'What I find annoying about myself is if I have a night of not drinking, I'll go into the office - I work on ideas... and I'll just have so much energy, and I'll be better at it.' Despite still drinking regularly, he added he ditched Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) because he found the meetings 'boring'. 'I've gone through loads of periods of stopping, and I've done periods of AA. I admire AA. It's a strange combination of people telling the most dramatic stories you've ever heard that I find really boring. I'm not even joking.' He recalled one meeting in Chelsea with several famous faces in the room. 'This guy was telling this story - he'd come out of prison and he'd gone to prison because he'd got high and he'd stolen a car and he was chased by a police helicopter then he drove through a police barricade. And I remember just sitting there checking my watch going, 'boring!' 'Imagine someone you know telling you that story? But somehow it's just one dramatic story after another, and it became a bit numb to it.' Despite this, he praised the 'generosity' of long-term sober members who continue to attend meetings seemingly to help others. 'If I'd been sober for 15 years, I wouldn't still be going to AA, and listening to more stories,' he said. 'I think for some of them, they are fairly certain they won't drink again but they do want to help. So it's a very positive place. It just didn't work for me.' Richard, who said he was diagnosed with 'a particularly strong strain of ADHD' aged 42, recently consulted a specialist about why he drinks so much - and was told he inherited the destructive tendency. 'My mum's basically an alcoholic. My granddad died of alcoholism. He went, 'Well that's why, it's just genetics.' 'I said, some people think it's the result of childhood trauma or something you've been running away from or not dealt with. And he was like, 'Nah, it's just genetics. It's a disease.' 'So now I think I can just say to my wife: it's not my fault! It's grandad's fault. It's mum's fault.' He added: 'I drink and I enjoy it and I don't seem to get in trouble so it's fine. It's not so much that I'm worried about being dangerous. I just the calories and the sleep. That bit is annoying.' To slash calories in his drink, he said, he avoids beer and red wine and sticks to vodka - particularly in the form of a martini with a twist. 'When you go to a bar and order vodka and they go, what sort of vodka do you want? I think they all taste the same! It's so irrelevant.' The former Radio 5 Live and Capital FM host lives in north London with his wife Rebecca McFarlane and their two children, Arthur, 13, and Ivy, 11. He admits parenthood didn't quite sober him up the way people might expect. '[Rebecca] had always wanted to be a mum,' he explained. 'So it was a really wonderful thing, but I think she looks back with disappointment at me at that time because I was still going out and not pulling my weight and coming in late. 'I think those first few years, I didn't snap into what you're kind of required to do quickly enough. So there was too much of a burden on her.' He continued: 'I hadn't wanted to be a parent until I met her, and then we fell in love really intensely. And she would talk about kids a lot, and that made me think, oh, right, OK. 'I recently tried to imagine having another baby... I'm so pleased I'm out of that phase. Rebecca did the real work here, but it is definitely harder than people say. 'No one really says how hard it is. They're constantly relying on me to keep them alive. It's like, f***ing hell. When they're young - two, three, four - they're flat out annoying.'
Scottish Sun
a day ago
- Business
- Scottish Sun
Rare 50p coin sells for more than 300 times its face value after lengthy bidding war – exact details to look out for
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) A RARE 50p coin has sold for more than 300 times its face value after a lengthy bidding war. The 2009 Kew Gardens coin was sold for £136.99 on eBay after one lucky bidder fought off offers from 18 others. 1 The Kew Gardens 50p is a highly sought after coin This rare find was minted in 2009, and was created to mark 250 years since the botanical gardens opened in 1759. To spot this coin, you need to look on the tails side. It features a leafy vine wrapped around a Chinese pagoda and has the word "Kew" written at the bottom. The front of this coin has an image of the late Queen Elizabeth II, with the engraver's initials, Ian Rank-Broadley, below. There are just 210,000 of these coins in circulation, making it a very rare find. That is compared to The Coronation of His Majesty King Charles III 50p, which has been minted five million times. Plus, you might be able to get more than £136 for the piece. In the past, we have seen this coin sell for up to £700 on eBay. More recently, it sold for £134 on the auction website for £110 after 12 bids. But you might not always fetch such a high sum for the piece, with one seller on eBay flogging the same coin for £34 after 11 bids. Spot a Rare £1 Coin Worth Up to £500: The Key Details Every Collector Should Know The Kew Gardens piece is not the only rare coin that can be worth a pretty penny. Last week, the Blue Peter Olympic 50p piece sold on eBay for £165. It was released in 2009 ahead of the London Olympic games in 2012. The coin features someone doing the high jump on one side, a design created by eight-year-old Florence Jackson from Bristol. The final design was chosen from over 17,000 entries as part of a Blue Peter competition. How to spot rare coins and banknotes Rare coins and notes hiding down the back of your sofa could sell for hundreds of pounds. If you are lucky enough to find a rare £10 note you might be able to sell it for multiple times its face value. You can spot rare notes by keeping an eye out for the serial numbers. These numbers can be found on the side with the Monarch's face, just under the value £10 in the corner of the note. Also, if you have a serial number on your note that is quite quirky, you could cash in thousands. For example, one seller bagged £3,600 after spotting a specific serial number relating to the year Jane Austen was born on one of their notes. You can check if your notes are worth anything on eBay, just tick "completed and sold items" and filter by the highest value. This will give you an idea of what people are willing to pay for some notes But bear in mind that yours is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it. This is also the case for coins, you can determine how rare your coin is by looking a the latest scarcity index.
Daily Record
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Record
Helen Skelton and Gethin Jones split as he returns to dating app 'keen to meet other women'
Helen Skelton and Gethin Jones have 'ended their rumoured romance' after the former Blue Peter presenter was 'spotted on a popular dating app' Gethin Jones and Helen Skelton appear to have called it 'quits' on their rumoured romance, as Gethin has reportedly returned to a dating app. The popular BBC presenters have shared a close friendship for some time, which was believed to have blossomed into something more after they were seen leaving the BAFTAs together in May. While they never officially confirmed a relationship, the pair had been spotted spending time together away from work, including a recent spa day at a country club. But it seems the brief romance has fizzled out as Gethin has reportedly been spotted on celebrity app Raya while he enjoys a trip to Australia, where he's been watching the British and Irish Lions' tour with a group of mates, the Mirror reports. It comes days after a further hint that things were heating up between the pair when Gethin, 47, took to his Instagram stories to publicly wish Helen happy birthday as she turned 42 earlier this month. "Gethin is on the prowl Down Under which puts the nail in the coffin for his romance with Helen," a source told Mail Online. "He's there with pals but keen to meet other women. "There is no way Helen would stand for that if they were together and he has far too much respect for her to even go behind her back. Despite having an increasingly close connection it's cooled down significantly which is gutting for fans who really wanted them to be together." The pair have both endured heartbreak in recent years. Gethin's engagement to Katherine Jenkins was called off in 2011 and he's experienced a series of short relationships since. Meanwhile Helen separated from ex-husband Richie Myler - with whom she shares three children - back in 2022. Helen and Leeds Rhinos rugby player Richie, 35, had been married for eight years and had just welcomed their third child, Elsie, when they parted ways. He now has two more children with Stephanie Thirkhill, also 35, whose millionaire father Andrew Thirkill is the president of Richie's rugby club. Shocking her followers at the time, Helen revealed the devastating news of her split on Instagram as she shared: "Very sad to say that Richie and I are no longer a couple. He has left the family home. We will be doing our best to co-parent our small children." While writing her 2023 autobiography, In My Stride, Helen opened up about the heartbreak of her unexpected separation. She shared candid reflections on the emotional toll it took, admitting that the breakup came as a shock and wasn't something she had ever seen coming. She penned: "I was in shock. I know that following break-ups, people often say they didn't see it coming and it sounds like a cliché, but that was me."
