The Royal Mint continues in its quest to distil all of British history and culture down to its 50 pence coin range with the addition of a new coin featuring the most famous work of Australian-British author Pamela Lyndon Travers, ‘Mary Poppins’. As always with the Royal Mint, this is all about the literary origins, and has nothing to do with the 1964 Disney film.

The coin depicts the most famous scene, that of Mary Poppins blown in by the wind, after which she meets, and becomes the nanny to the Banks family. While most immediately think of the movie when they hear Mary Poppins, the books have a far longer life, the first of the eight published in 1934, and the last in 1988. Travers died in 1996, aged 96.

This is a typical seven-sided 50p coin, and the range consists of an 8.0 gram sterling silver variant with colour highlights, and a cleanly struck 22kt gold offering. Both are boxed with a COA, the silver coin coming in one of those very neat solid acrylic blocks, with the gold in a traditional wood box. For the collector on a budget, there are coloured and uncoloured base metal versions. All are available now.