Posts Tagged ‘Rare coin’
How much is my coin worth? June 2019 eBay Tracker update!
We’re excited to present your latest eBay Tracker and Valuation Index for the Top 10 UK coins and banknotes!
The secondary market can be a bit of a minefield, but if you’ve found a rare coin or banknote and want to work out how much it might be worth, we’ve done the hard work for you…
eBay Tracker
Find out which coins and notes have been the key movers and shakers in the updated eBay Tracker below.
The most notable increase from the last update goes (unsurprisingly) to the Kew Gardens 50p, which has increased in price on the secondary market by £5 and is currently selling for around £102 on eBay – more than 200 times its face value!
Whilst many collectors were concerned that the 2019 Brilliant Uncirculated re-issue of this 2009 coin would make it less collectable, it seems that in fact the opposite has happened and the reinvigorated hype surrounding the UK’s rarest 50p in circulation has led to an increase in demand for the coin, meaning collectors are willing to pay more to get their hands on one.
Other increases to mention are the AA01 serial number polymer banknotes, as both the £5 and £10 notes have increased by £2 since the last update, which is a 20% increase on January’s figures for the £5 and 11% for the £10 note.
Overall there has been a decrease in value for the Top 10 coins and banknotes and this is mostly due to the 2018 Sir Isaac Newton 50p, which has dropped by 32% on January’s figures and is currently selling for £40.50.
This coin was issued as a ‘Strike Your Own Coin’ from The Royal Mint Experience in 2018 and due to the short time frame it was available for, the number of coins struck could be really low, meaning it may well be very rare.
However the mintage figures for this coin haven’t been revealed by The Royal Mint yet, so we don’t know exactly how many were struck. When the official figures are released we could well see this coin increase in value on the secondary market.
Valuation Index
My coin isn’t on the eBay Tracker
The eBay Tracker follows the movements of the Top 10 UK coins and banknotes, however if your coin doesn’t appear on the tracker you can use our 6 point guide to help determine realistic a value for your coin.
So now that you’re up to date with our latest eBay Tracker, will you be selling any of the coins in your collection or will you continue to save them? Let us know in the comments below.
How does the eBay Tracker work?
The Change Checker eBay Tracker takes the last 9 sold prices achieved on eBay and gives the median price achieved (rounded to the nearest 50p). By taking the median, rather than an average, we avoid skewing created by one or two excessive prices achieved.
Please note that the Change Checker eBay Tracker is only ever designed to be a guide as to prices achieved on eBay. Prices may vary depending on collector demand and the quality of the coin being sold. It does not provide any guarantee as to future values of coins.
If you’re interested in coin collecting, our Change Checker web app is completely free to use and allows users to:
– Find and identify the coins in their pocket
– Collect and track the coins they have
– Swap their spare coins with other Change Checkers
Sign up today at: www.changechecker.org/app
Do you know how rare the Great Fire of London £2 really is?
With 37 different £2 coin designs in circulation, it’s very tough to choose a favourite, but one of mine is certainly the Great Fire of London £2, issued in 2016 to mark the 350th anniversary of one of the most well-known disasters to hit London.
The reverse of the coin, designed by Aaron West, depicts the city of London burning in flames from a distance and makes for an eye catching design which I’m sure many collectors love just as much as I do.
But are you lucky enough to have one of these coins in your collection?
Whilst this coin was previously considered ‘Less Common’ (as rated on our Scarcity Index), it has now been confirmed that the mintage figure for the Great Fire of London £2 was mistakenly listed and the coin is in fact rarer than we once thought…
Mintage Charts
To reflect the change to the Great Fire of London £2 coin’s mintage figure, we’ve updated our mintage charts to show you how rare this coin actually is compared to the other £2’s in circulation.
The Great Fire of London has actually jumped up 15 places on the mintage chart now that the correct figure of 1,625,000 has been confirmed.
The previous figure of 5,135,000 placed the coin in the middle of the pack, just slightly rarer than the Gunpowder Plot £2, however it can now be found amongst the London Underground £2 coins, nearer the top of the mintage chart.
Scarcity Index
These changes are also evident on our latest Scarcity Index update.
Whilst the coin has only moved up the index by 4 coin places, this is the biggest movement on the £2 index and the coin’s Scarcity Index score has actually jumped up from 18 to 34 – almost doubling from the previous index!
Historically, the Great Fire of London £2 has always scored in the mid to high teens, but the updated mintage figures now reflect the fact that the coin is in fact harder than previously believed to find in your change.
Have any other coins been affected?
It wasn’t just the Great Fire of London £2 coin which was affected by the updated mintage figures… There were in fact 4 coins from 2016 with previously incorrect figures.
The changes haven’t made much of an impact to either of these coin’s rankings for the Scarcity Index, with both coins actually moving down 1 place on the index pictured above.
With regards to our mintage figure charts, the two coins have simply swapped positions, as can be seen below.
With regards to 50p coins, the only coin affected was the 2016 Peter Rabbit 50p.
This relatively small increase has had no effect on the coin’s ranking on the Scarcity Index or position on the mintage figure chart, which can be seen below.
Whilst the changes to the mintage figures for the Shakespeare £2s and Peter Rabbit 50p have made minimal impact, it’s fair to say that with almost 4 million less Great Fire of London £2 coins in circulation than previously thought, the scarcity of this coin has definitely increased, making it even more special for those of you lucky enough to have one in your collection.
Add the Great Fire of London circulation £2 to your collection!
Following the updated mintage figures, I’m sure collectors will be keen to make sure this coin is added to their collection.
Click here to secure the coin in circulation quality for £8.00 with FREE p&p
Have I found a rare coin? £2 ‘errors’ explained!
So you’ve noticed something’s not quite right with the £2 coin you’ve just found in your change. A quick google search of the strange variation you’ve noticed brings up a plethora of eBay listings and news articles claiming that you’ve just hit the jackpot and your ‘error’ coin is worth a small fortune!
Sadly, in this instance Google is not your friend and whilst genuine errors are out there, so too are a number of common mis-strikes and myths, or even fakes that have been manipulated to look like an error.
So what is the difference between a mis-strike and an error I hear you ask.
Put simply, a true error is caused by human mistake, such as the wrong die or metal being used to strike a coin, whereas a mis-strike is created by the mass production process, as hundreds of thousands of coins are struck, meaning variations are bound to occur, especially when dies and machinery become worn.
But which mis-strikes on the bi-metallic £2 coin should you be aware of?
I recently read Scott Wren’s article, ‘Bi-metallic “errors”… Why two is better than one’ published in Coin News which highlights some of the mis-strikes found on £2 coins and how their bi-metallic quality causes the differences to be something entirely more spectacular than those found on monometallic (single metal) coins.
Striking bi-metallic coins
In order to understand why mis-strikes on bi-metallic coins are often more pronounced than monometallic coins, it’s first a good idea to look into how these coins are produced.
When striking £2 coins, the first step is to punch a hole through a blank planchet to create the outer section. The inner core is taken from a different metal, sized to fit inside the outer ring.
A groove is milled around the edge of the inner core so that when both parts are struck together, the metals will fuse as the outer ring deforms and spread into the groove, locking it into place.
Now that we know how £2 coins are struck, here are some of the mis-strikes and errors that can occur in the process…
The following images of variations found on £2 coins have been taken from Coin News for use in this blog.
Clipped Planchet
Figure 1 shows how the inner core was punched out from the end of the sheet of metal used for blanks, forming a straight or ragged edge clip.
Whilst this also occurs with monometallic coins, the pairing with an outer ring exposes a large gap which is much more noticeable.
The Royal Mint strike millions of coins each year so it is inevitable that variances will occur during the striking process and can’t always be picked up during quality control, despite the fact that this particular coin would weigh less than the standard 12g £2 coin. However, a small quantity of coins do sometimes manage to slip through the net and as i’m sure you’ll agree, they make for interesting collecting.
But before you pay over the odds for one of these coins, beware of fakers! Some coins are manipulated to look like mis-strikes or error coins and sold to unsuspecting buyers. Check the clipped planchet edge of the coin to see if it’s genuine by making sure the detail of the design fades away towards the edge rather than suddenly stopping, which would indicate the coin had been cut.
Off Centre Inner Core
Figure 2 shows an inner core which hasn’t been united properly prior to being struck.
Due to the way the inner and outer core are struck together with the two metals being lined up and then fused together during striking, a misalignment will mean that the inner core spills into the outer ring, as seen in the image above. There might also be a gap between the two metals on the opposing join.
This mis-strike is thought to be fairly common on the bi-metallic 12 sided £1 coin as well as some of the Technology £2 coins and even foreign bimetallic coins, but have you ever spotted one in your change?
Faulty Outer Ring
Figure 3 shows a faulty planchet or outer ring, where the inner core is exposed.
In the image above, you can actually see the specific engineering design features where the inner core is grooved to help the metal flow bond to the outer ring and fuse during striking.
Similar to the first mis-strike we looked at, this could be caused by a clipped planchet, this time created when the outer ring was punched, however coins like this may also be caused by tampering post striking, for example by fakers trying to replace the inner core of a £2 with another coin to pass off as a rare error.
The Holy Grail of Bi-metallic ‘Errors’
Figure 4 is described as the Holy Grail of bimetallic ‘errors’ and is the result of the nickel-brass £2 blank not having the inner core section punched out before being struck.
This means that the £2 coin is made from one full piece of nickel-brass, completely contrasting the very idea of a bimetallic coin.
A 2007 monometallic £2 was verified by The Royal Mint and in the email confirming the mis-strike it was mentioned that they had only seen 4-5 similar coins before.
This rare striking error is highly sought after and coins have achieved extraordinary prices in private sales and auctions.
Foreign Planchet
Finally, figure 5 shows a £2 design struck on the wrong planchet – a blank normally used to strike a different coin.
As The Royal Mint strikes a huge quantity of coins for different denominations and even different countries, blanks can sometimes end up in the wrong striking chamber, creating a wrong or foreign planchet error.
This is actually down to human error rather than a mis-strike and the coins would normally be picked out during quality control, however some have been spotted in circulation, not only on the £2 coin, but on various different denominations across UK coins and world wide.
One of the most famous examples in the UK is the silver 2p – a 2p coin struck on to a 10p blank which sold for 67,580 times its face value at auction.
Other £2 ‘errors’ that are worth keeping your eyes peeled for!
2014 First World War (Lord Kitchener) £2 – Two Pounds ‘Error’
This £2 coin was issued in 2014 to mark 100 years since the outbreak of the First World War. It features an image of Lord Kitchener who was a prominent figure on British government propaganda campaigns during the time.
5,720,000 of these coins entered circulation, meaning it could be quite easy to stumble across one in your change. However, a small number of these coins are supposed to have entered circulation without the ‘Two Pounds’ denomination on the obverse.
Sometimes the denomination of the coin will feature on the reverse design, meaning it won’t appear on the obverse too. This can be seen on the Trinity House £2 coin which was issued earlier in the same year as the First World War £2.
It’s possible that the dies used to strike the obverse of the Trinity House £2 coin wasn’t replaced when the production of the First World War Centenary £2 coins began, resulting in the absence of a denomination.
We’ve only heard of two reports of these ‘error’ coins being found in circulation. However, Lockdales Auctioneers officiated the sale of the very first one back in March 2020 to the value of £500! A hefty return on a £2 coin…
Have you ever seen this £2 ‘error’? We’d love to know in the comments below.
So how much is my ‘error’ coin worth?
These mis-strikes and errors certainly make for interesting collecting and the rarer variations, such as monometallic £2 coins could certainly sell for over face value.
In fact, one such monometallic mis-strike found on a 2007 Technology £2 is estimated to be worth over £1,000!
Ultimately, as with all coins, it’s all down to how much an individual collector is willing to pay to add that coin to their collection.
If you’ve found a £2 coin with a mis-strike, it’s certainly worth having it verified and authenticated by The Royal Mint, who will supply a letter detailing their findings.
So have you found any interesting variations on your bimetallic £2 coins? Let us know in the comments below!
With thanks to Scott Wren from Coin News.
If you’re interested in coin collecting, our Change Checker web app is completely free to use and allows users to:
– Find and identify the coins in their pocket
– Collect and track the coins they have
– Swap their spare coins with other Change Checkers
Sign up today at: www.changechecker.org/app