The final mintage number for these BU coins is only released by The Royal Mint a few years after the coin's release, when they are satisfied that they have made as many sales as they can. So, the limit for BU coins is set only by public demand.
This allows them to sell as many of these coins as they get orders for. This is because The Royal Mint do not decide on issue limits for their BU coins. Newer BU (brilliant uncirculated) coins have mintages listed as UNLIMITED. We have arranged them in order of rarity using their mintage number. The list in the table below covers every design (of both old and new 50p coin) that has been issued as a limited edition and there are a lot of them! Limited edition coins are created by The Royal Mint solely for sale to collectors and are never released into general circulation.