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Quick update on buying coins at face value from the Royal Mint using 3V

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A couple of weeks ago, I ran this article on buying 50p coins at face value from the Royal Mint.

To be honest, it was written as a bit of fun.  And the fact that the ‘free postage’ code I gave had expired before the post actually appeared did not help!

However, a new code for free postage is now available – OLDNPP

At worst, you can now buy £50 of 50p coins for £50 and get them delivered to your house for free.  Because the Royal Mint takes Visa and MasterCard, you can earn a few miles for your effort and get £50 nearer any sign-up bonus you are working towards.

It gets more interesting if you buy 3V Virtual Visa cards from Tesco, though.  The Royal Mint takes these cards, so you can immediately cash them out – whilst netting yourself 150 Clubcard points (360 Avios) for every £50 of 3V cards you bought.  (See here for more details on 3V).

Since you are limited to roughly £50 per order – you can only buy 4 of each different coin – and since someone needs to be at home to take the delivery (I assume they don’t go through your letterbox), I still put this in the ‘bit of fun’ category.  But it could prove useful nonetheless.

Comments (47)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Mr Bridge says:

    Just dreaming that the next foursquare deal will include a reatailer that stocks 3V cards, it will be like the 1st day of the harrods sale

    • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

      Tesco was on Foursquare in December. Halcyon days!

  • Toddy says:

    I ordered £150 in 50ps (over 3 orders). The site was tediously slow but this was nothing compared to the effort required to remove each 50p.

    I decided to give up after about £10 worth and the rest are on ebay as a bulk lot…

  • Greenpen says:

    Note that quite a few of the coins can be added to your basket but are not in stock, they are “in production”. This will slow down order despatch some what! As I write it is not possible to get £25 worth of “in stock” coins.

    • takke says:

      It seems strange that they would still be producing these coins since the Olympics are over and they’re selling them off at 50p each and have to ship and process them. I’ve stuck on the safe side and goen for the ‘In stock’ ones and will put the remainder into an Amazon gift card.

  • Tangey says:

    Royal mint is happy to deliver these to a different address than the billing address, I got mine delivered to work.

  • angela says:

    no 3v cards to be found in edinburgh but bless my dear old dad who has trawled rural fife and collected a magnificent haul
    he doesnt understand how it works but even resisted the till operators offer to put them through in multiples of 3 so he got more petrol vouchers as i had told him that he must buy them in even numbers.
    he now is looking forward to delivery of his share of asda vouchers and 50p coins
    the 50p will be good physio for my mums hands as she sits and opens them all up plus it will pass some time for my nieces on their next visit lol

    • Ian says:

      Tesco Colinton Mains had some this morning – I bought 4 but I left at least 6 on the display.

      • takke says:

        Anyone interested in Tesco stores stocking in Birmingham:

        Caxton Metro – does not appear to stock 3Vs, only physical cards
        Colmore Row Express/Carrs Lane Express – doesn’t stock, haven’t seen any in Express stores
        Yardley Extra – stocks 3V cards, I left about 6 there yesterday
        Hall Green – stocks 3V cards, I left about 8 there yesterday

        • Curious says:

          Hello fellow Brummie!

          Just add to this list:

          Tesco Edgbaston/Fiveways had some in stock.
          Tesco Aston – cleared out 😉
          Tesco HodgeHill/Fox & Goose – sold out
          Tesco Swan Centre – about 8 left

          BTW The RoyalMint allowed me to use an AMEX card but I used the 3V instead.

          • takke says:

            Hello! Thanks for that info, saves me looking round the stores that don’t have any!

  • Manuel Gonzalez says:

    Any Tesco or other in London? I am from EU, but tomorrow in London.

  • Ed E says:

    I just spoke to Royal Mint about an order that is taking a long time to go through and they haven’t taken the cash off the 3V card yet.

    They have actually restarted production of some of these coins to be able to fulfil the thousands of orders that have come in over the last couple of months. She also said that the end of June is when all these will be withdrawn for good and they will no longer be selling any Olympic based coinage.

  • Trevor says:

    Can only order £10 worth of 50p that are in stock, and despite other suggestions about ordering what isn’t in stock, the site doesn’t let you order anything else, stating that they are “No Longer Available”.

    For £10, it’s just not worth the hassle for me – I’d do a full £25 3V card or nothing, other you have leftovers on the card I don’t want to have to worry about. Plenty of other ways to use the cards and no rush just yet to do so.

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