50p Coins » The Gruffalo

The Gruffalo's Child 50p Error Coin

Fifty pence coin struck to celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Gruffalo's Child.

Taking a quote from The Gruffalo's child book, The Royal Mint used "Just wait and see" for pre-release adverts for the new Gruffalo's child 50p. (Release Date: Wednesday 28th August 2024).

As it turns out – we didn't have to wait and see, as The Royal Mint published a PDF showing the coin design in a colouring activity sheet.

The trade sheet that should have been under embargo until 00:00 28/08/2024 was also shared by Australian websites: aussiecoinsandnotes.com and onlinecoin.club

The coin design is based on images of The Gruffalo's child created by Axel Scheffler.

In the book and the film, The Gruffalo's child has 4 toes and claws on each foot with footprints showing indents of 4 toe / claw marks in the snow.

Whilst the coin itself features an image taken from a page in the book, it has been slightly amended for the coin design – to show the feet that were covered by snow and 5 footprints in the snow that were not in front of The Gruffalo's child in the original illustration.

The feet only show 6 claws, whilst this could simply be down to the view angle (where 2 of the 8 claws seen in the original drawings could be hidden) – on close inspection, it does appear that the Gruffalo’s child featuring on this coin, does only have 3 toes on each foot.

The footprints in the snow also seem to suggest that the design ignores this aspect of the original book illustrations.

Some purists may call this an "error coin" – and suggest the coin should be re-struck as an authentic representation of the physical features of The Gruffalo's child which have been the same for 20 years.

Here at Coin Hunter, we think it may be more accurate to refer to this as a slight inaccuracy or perhaps a "coin design error" – footprints in the snow belonging to The Gruffalo's child, should have 4 toe / claw marks, not 3.

Coin Rarity / Mintage

The The Gruffalo's Child 50p was Not Struck For Circulation (NSFC), so wont be found in change.

This fifty pence was available to purchase in Brilliant Uncirculated (BU) quality from release date: 28 August 2024. BU mintage figures have not been published.

Coin Value - How much is my The Gruffalo's Child 50p coin worth?

The Brilliant Uncirculated (BU) The Gruffalo's Child 50p was available from £5.95 on issue, in as new condition this BU 50p coin is worth about £5.

The Gruffalo 50p