The Royal Mint has put Wallace, Gromit, Morph and Shaun the Sheep onto legal tender. On 9 June 2026 the Mint launched a commemorative 50p marking the fiftieth anniversary of Aardman, the Bristol stop motion studio that has been turning lumps of plasticine into Academy Awards since 1976. The reverse was designed by Aardman itself, and it is exactly as busy and as cheerful as that pairing implies.
For collectors, the appeal is twofold. There is the obvious nostalgia draw, half a century of characters that most British households can name on sight, and there is a quieter milestone tucked inside the range: the gold edition is, the Mint says, the first individually produced gold commemorative coin struck from recycled gold.
The design
The tails side gathers some of the studio’s most recognisable faces into a single frame: Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, the criminal mastermind penguin Feathers McGraw, and Morph, who has been a fixture of British children’s television since the late 1970s. At the centre sits the Aardman logo paired with a star, a nod to the fiftieth anniversary, with the legend AARDMAN 50 YEARS! running across the design. Several pieces in the range carry colour printing, which does most of the heavy lifting in a design this character dense, the figures simply read better with it. The obverse carries the standard King Charles III effigy, dated 2026.
It is, in the Mint’s framing, a partnership release rather than a licensed novelty, produced with Aardman directly. That distinction matters less to the coin in your hand than to the design’s authenticity: the characters are drawn by the people who made them.
The range
The Mint has spread the release across the usual tiers, which is where the buying decisions get interesting. Entry is a Brilliant Uncirculated 50p at £15. Above it sits the Brilliant Uncirculated Colour coin at £25, limited to 12,500 and struck in cupro nickel at the standard 8.00 g and 27.30 mm, the version most casual buyers will reach for. A Silver Proof Colour coin follows at £92.50, capped at 5,000.
At the top is the Gold Proof, limited to just 100 pieces and priced at £2,420. There is also a Limited Edition Print at £250, in an edition of 250, for buyers who want the artwork without the metal. The four figure gold edition is the one to watch on the secondary market; an edition of 100 against a fan base this large is the kind of mismatch that tends to resolve quickly.
A recycled gold first
The gold proof carries the release’s only real piece of numismatic news. According to the Mint, it is the first time a gold commemorative coin has been offered individually from recycled gold, metal recovered from old jewellery and coins rather than freshly mined. The Mint frames it as a step in a broader commitment, with the stated aim of extending recycled sourcing to all of its collectable gold coins by the end of 2026.
For a single 100 piece edition the environmental footprint is modest. As a marker of where the Mint intends to take its bullion and collectable gold lines, it is the more consequential detail in the whole release.
Strike your own
To launch the coin, Aardman Co founder and Creative Director Peter Lord visited Llantrisant to strike one of the first 50p pieces, accompanied, fittingly, by Morph. Rebecca Morgan, a Director at The Royal Mint, leaned into the studio’s own house language, calling it the sort of coin fans will treasure and, in the spirit of Wallace, quite simply crackers not to own.
Collectors can do the striking themselves later in the summer. From 3 August to 5 October, visitors to The Royal Mint Experience can strike their own Aardman 50p, with a mini exhibition celebrating the studio’s fifty years on display from 3 August to 13 September. The coin itself went on sale at 9am on launch day and is available directly from the Royal Mint.
What it means for collectors
This is, at heart, a popular anniversary issue rather than a landmark in coinage, a well made set of characters most buyers will recognise instantly, sold across the full ladder of finishes. The £15 and £25 pieces are pocket money nostalgia; the silver and gold are where the collecting decisions actually live. For set builders and Aardman fans, the colour BU coin is the natural pick. For everyone else, the more lasting story is the one printed on the priciest piece in the range: a small gold coin quietly testing whether the Mint can build its future collectables out of metal it already has.
