Posts Tagged ‘Two Pounds’
Britain’s top historical coins!
The coins we find in our change can act as a guide to map out our nation’s heritage, and these historical coins play an incredibly important role in preserving these key moments for generations to come.
We put together a list of our top ten historical coins and asked Change Checkers to vote for their all time favourite, read on to find out more about these coins and to find out which was voted your favourite!
10. 2005 Gunpowder Plot £2 – 2% of votes
Theme
In 1605, a failed assassination attempt of King James I by a group of English Catholics went down in history as The Gunpowder Plot. Whilst the 5th of November is now an an exciting celebration with fireworks and bonfires, the plan made by these rebels back in 1605 was far less light hearted…
They plotted to blow up the House of Lords during the opening of Parliament on 5th November 1605, but Guy Fawkes was discovered the night before, guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder and was subsequently executed along with seven other plotters.
Coin Design
In 2005, The Royal Mint issued this £2 coin to mark the 400th anniversary. The reverse design of this coin features a montage of bishop’s crosiers, swords, and the Parliamentary mace – symbolising the survival of the British establishment.
Circulating Mintage – 5,140,500
Scarcity Index Rating – Common
9. 2016 Battle of Hastings 50p – 5% of votes
Theme
In 1066, King Harold II’s English army was defeated by the Norman-French army of William the Conqueror. This led to the Norman conquest of England, with William the Conqueror becoming our first Norman King – a crucial moment in medieval history.
Coin Design
In 2016, The Royal Mint issued this 50p coin to mark the 950th anniversary of this hugely significant event, which changed the course of history. The reverse of this coin was designed by John Bergdahl and is inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry. It depicts the fate of King Harold at the hands of William The Conqueror, along with the famous date 1066. The obverse features the fifth portrait of Queen Elizabeth II by Jody Clark.
Circulating Mintage – 6,700,000
Scarcity Index Rating – Common
8. 2014 First World War Kitchener £2 – 6% of votes
Theme
Horatio Herbert Kitchener, the British Secretary of War, became synonymous with the enlistment campaign when war was declared on 4th August 1914. Intuition told him that the war would last for several years and so he masterminded a recruitment campaign to build the largest volunteer army that Britain had ever seen and oversaw a significant expansion of material production to fight on the Western Front. On 5 June 1916, Kitchener died aboard HMS Hampshire, when it struck a German mine near Scotland and sank.
Coin Design
To mark the centenary of the First World War, the Royal Mint revealed a five-year commemoration of the wartime journey from outbreak to armistice. and the first coin in the series is this £2 bearing a depiction of Lord Kitchener’s famous call to arms alongside the words YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU.
Circulating Mintage – 5,720,000
Scarcity Index Rating – Common
7. 2005 End of World War II £2 – 7% of votes
Theme
The 8th May 1945 is known as VE Day – Victory in Europe, which marked the end of World War Two. This followed Germany’s surrender, about a week after Adolf Hitler had committed suicide during the Battle of Berlin.
Upon Germany’s defeat, an eruption of celebrations swept across the western world and in the UK, more than a million people took to the streets to mark the end of war. In London, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth appeared on the balcony of the palace alongside Prime Minister Winston Churchill, to stand before the cheering crowds.
Coin Design
The reverse design of this £2 features a depiction of St Paul’s Cathedral which survived the Blitz and became a great symbol of hope to a war-torn nation. The edge inscription reads – IN VICTORY: MAGNANIMITY, IN PEACE: GOODWILL – part of the famous maxim that prefaces Churchill’s history of the Second World War.
Circulating Mintage – 10,191,000
Scarcity Index Rating – Common
6. 1998 NHS 50p – 7% of votes
Theme
On the 5th of July 1948, the National Health Service was born – providing a health service available to all and financed entirely from taxation. After a Labour victory in the 1945 general election, Aneurin Bevan became minister of health, responsible for establishing the NHS.
This was the first time that anywhere in the world had completely free healthcare for citizens and brought together hospitals, doctors and nurses as one service, becoming the third largest employer in England.
Coin Design
In 1998, The Royal Mint issued this 50p coin to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the NHS. The coin’s reverse design features a pair of hands radiating lines to symbolise hope, created by David Cornell. This was the 3rd 50p in the smaller specification ,introduced in 1997, to enter circulation, preceded only by the Britannia 50p and the UK Entry to EEC 50p.
Circulating Mintage – 5,001,000
Scarcity Index Rating – Less Common
5. 2003 Suffragettes 50p – 8% of votes
Theme
With Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst at its forefront, the Suffragette movement finally saw the partial votes for women in 1918, with the franchise being extended to all women over 21 in 1928. The passionate campaigning for equal voting rights by this pioneering group of women meant that they risked ridicule and even imprisonment in defence of their cause. However, the foundations they laid shaped society’s idea of women and sparked a new era of feminist history.
Coin Design
The Royal Mint issued the Suffragettes 50p in 2003 to commemorate the centenary of the establishment of the Women’s Social and Political Union. The design, by Mary Milner Dickens, features the figure of a suffragette chained to railings holding a banner on which appear the letters WSPU and to the right a ballot paper marked with a cross can be seen.
Circulating Mintage – 3,124,030
Scarcity Index Rating – Less Common
4. 2009 Charles Darwin £2 – 10% of votes
Theme
Charles Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history and was known as the ‘father or evolution’. Born in 1809, Darwin was a British scientist whose work laid the foundations of the theory of evolution and natural selection, forever transforming the way we think about the natural world.
At the time of publication in 1859, his book ‘On the Origin of the Species’ was extremely controversial as it made it seem possible that humans evolved from apes, contradicting the widely held Orthodox Church theory of creation.
Coin Design
His death on the 19th April 1882 was honoured with a burial at Westminster Abbey and in 2009, The Royal Mint celebrated 200 years since his birth and 150 years since the publication of ‘On the Origin of Species’ with this £2 coin. The reverse design by Suzie Zamit features a profile portrait of Darwin facing a chimpanzee.
Circulating Mintage – 3,903,000
Scarcity Index Rating – Less Common
3. 2015 Magna Carta £2 – 14% of votes
Theme
The Magna Carta or ‘Great Charter’ is known as one of the most famous documents ever written and forms the foundations for modern democracy and the rights of all English citizens today. Issued in 1215 by King John of England (otherwise known as ‘Bad King John’ due to his autocratic rule), the charter made peace with the rebel barons who had been causing a political crisis and stated that everyone (including the king) was subject to the law.
It’s still cited in many legal cases to this day and some of the core values can also be seen in the United States Bill of Rights (1791), despite the document being substantially altered within just 10 years of it being issued.
Coin Design
In 2015, The Royal Mint issued this £2 coin to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta. The reverse design of this medieval-style coin features King John holding a quill and flanked by two noblemen.
Circulating Mintage – 1,495,000
Scarcity Index Rating – Less Common
2. 2016 Great Fire of London £2 – 18% of votes
Theme
The Great Fire is one of the most well-known disasters to hit London, when an accidental spark from a baker’s oven on Pudding Lane led to the destruction of a third of the city. At the time, London had an estimated half a million inhabitants, many of which lived in wooden houses and makeshift structures that had become bone dry during an exceptional drought. Over the course of 4 days, flames reaching temperatures of 1,250 °C consumed 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, St Paul’s Cathedral, and most of the buildings of the City authorities.
Coin Design
This 2016 £2 coin was issued by The Royal Mint to mark the 350th Anniversary of the poignant moment in the city’s history from which modern London emerged. The reverse depicts the city of London burning in flames from a distance and was designed by Aaron West.
Circulating Mintage – 1,625,000
Scarcity Index Rating – Less Common
1. 2018 Sir Isaac Newton 50p – 23% of votes
The 2018 Sir Isaac Newton 50p was voted a Change Checkers’ all time favourite historical coin!
Theme
Sir Isaac Newton is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and a key figure in the scientific revolution. According to the Julian calendar in use in England at the time, Newton was born on Christmas Day, 25 December 1642, in the county of Lincolnshire. He became a fellow of Trinity College and the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. His works changed our understanding of mathematics and physics and redefined the way we see the world.
In 1696, on the recommendation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Isaac Newton became master of The Royal Mint, where he shaped the security of our currency, ensuring coins were made of the correct weight and fineness, varying as little as possible one from another.
Coin Design
Designed by Aaron West, this 50p coin was issued by The Royal Mint in 2017 to commemorate the achievements of Sir Isaac Newton and remember the legacy he left.
Circulating Mintage – 1,801,500
Scarcity Index Rating – Less Common
I’m sure you’ll agree that each of these historical coins beautifully represent a very special part of British heritage and acts as a window into our past history.
Do you agree with the vote results? If not, let us know in the comments which of these coins is your favourite!
Find out more about your coins
Download the FREE Change Checker Web App to find out more about the coins in your change.
How rare is my £2 and how much is it worth?
Since the first very bi-metallic £2 coins were released back in 1998, there have been 37 UK £2 coin designs issued for circulation! But with so many different designs in circulation, how can you tell which ones you should be looking out for?
Luckily for you, we’ve done the hard work and compiled a number of resources to help you determine how rare your £2 coin is and how much it might be worth.
Mintages
A key tool for working out how rare your coin might be is our £2 mintage chart. Generally speaking, the lower the mintage, the rarer the coin and the harder it will be to find in circulation.
Below is the most up to date mintage chart for the UK £2 coins in circulation, with the UK’s rarest – the 2002 Commonwealth Games Northern Ireland £2 – in top spot.
With a circulating mintage of just 485,500, the N. Ireland Commonwealth Games £2 is the rarest in circulation by far. The second rarest is the Wales Commonwealth Games £2, with a mintage of 588,500 – which is still pretty low considering there are 567,607,588 £2 coins in circulation in total!
Click here to read more about the 50p mintage figures >>
eBay Tracker
Our eBay Tracker, which is updated every 6 months, follows the secondary market selling price of the top 10 UK coins and banknotes. The eBay Tracker takes the last 9 sold prices achieved on eBay and gives you the median price achieved. By taking the median, rather than an average, we avoid one or two excessive prices skewing the figures.
Our latest eBay Tracker reveals that the 2002 N. Ireland Commonwealth Games £2 is selling for around £31.55 on the secondary market – that’s nearly 16 times its face value!
Read our latest eBay Tracker update >>
Don’t see your coin on the eBay Tracker? You can use our 6 Point Guide to valuing your coins to determine how much they could be worth.
Change Checker’s Scarcity Index
To give you a complete picture of how your coin compares to other £2 coins in circulation, we’ve combined the mintage information with other key pieces of information from the Change Checker Swap Centre.
Here’s our most recent Scarcity Index for £2 coins, with yet again the Commonwealth Games Northern Ireland coming in on top as the most scarce £2.
So how rare is your £2?
Hopefully these tools will enable you to get a more realistic picture of how rare your £2 is and how much it might be worth. Of course, these figures will change over time and as new £2 coins are released into circulation, so make sure you stay up to date with all our latest coin news and information.
We’d love to know if you’ve found any rare coins in your change recently, so let us know in the comments below!
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
UPDATE: Which coin series will you vote as your favourite?
With the release of the brand new Paddington 50p coin series in 2018, I’ve been thinking back over some of the UK’s top coin releases and of course nothing is quite as exciting as a whole series of brand new coins to add to your collection! But which series has been your favourite, Change Checkers…?
The results are now in and it’s safe to say that we have a clear winner with the coin series that started it all – the Olympic 50ps! That’s right, Change Checkers voted this hugely popular series as their favourite and it’s no wonder, as these coins created a collecting storm back in 2012 when coin collectors and Olympic enthusiasts alike looked to secure these coins for their Olympic collections.
Find out more about these coins below and take a look at the results of our poll at the bottom of this page.
Coming in a close second were the brand new 2018 RAF £2 coins, closely followed by the new A-Z 10p coins. It seems that Change Checker’s are really enjoying these new coins releases and whilst the RAF coins haven’t been released into circulation yet and the A-Z 10ps are proving tricky to find, they are clearly holding a lot of appeal for collectors.
Read all about these coins, and the other 50p and £2 coin series below.
50p coins!
The first series to really kick start coin collector’s of the nation was the Olympic 50p series, which has since become so popular that it’s now estimated that 75% of the coins have been removed from circulation by collectors!
Olympic 50ps
So what made this coin series so special? The 2012 Olympics were of course a hugely exciting time for Britain and people were undoubtedly looking for a ‘free’ souvenir to mark this significant event.
Struck at the organisation’s headquarters in South Wales, the coins were designed by members of the public as part of a Royal Mint competition in which nearly 30,000 entries were submitted. They are the first ever UK coins to be designed by the public.
Each of the twenty-nine 50p coins features an Olympic or Paralympic sport on its reverse. These include sailing, cycling and basketball as well as less well-known sports such as handball and the Paralympic sport boccia.
The 50p coins are seen as a perfect souvenir to remember London 2012 due to their intrinsic value and quality which holds an interest and fascination for generations to come and have been officially voted by Change Checkers as their favourite coin series!
2016 Beatrix Potter 50ps
Following the collecting sensation of the Olympic 50ps, the Beatrix Potter 50p coin series quickly became the next big thing to get Change Checkers and coin collectors across the nation excited! There have been three series of these hugely popular 50ps, with each series including much-loved characters from the Beatrix Potter books.
The first series was released by The Royal Mint in 2016 to mark 150 years since the birth of the beloved children’s author and featured 5 coins including Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin, Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, Jemima Puddle Duck and a coin depicting elements that celebrate the life of Beatrix Potter.
The response from collectors was staggering, with The Royal Mint’s website crashing under the sheer weight of the public’s interest in the first morning of the 2016 Peter Rabbit 50p going on sale.
He has since featured in each of the following series, the only character to appear in all three, which just goes to show what a popular little bunny he is!
2017 Beatrix Potter 50ps
In 2017, much to the delight of coin collectors across the nation, The Royal Mint released a brand new series of Beatrix Potter 50ps to carry on the celebrations of some of Beatrix Potter’s most loved animals.
This series included Peter Rabbit (of course), Jeremy Fisher, Tom Kitten and Benjamin Bunny.
The huge popularity of the previous year’s coins meant that collector’s couldn’t wait to get their hands on these coins and build their collection of Beatrix Potter 50ps.
We are now starting to see these coins entering circulation, with Tom Kitten and Jeremy Fisher turning up in people’s change, so make sure to keep your eye out for them!
2018 Beatrix Potter 50ps
This year, we’ve seen another Beatrix Potter series released and collectors seem to be continuing to fall in love with the adorable characters on these coins.
Peter Rabbit returns for a third year running in the 2018 series, alongside his friends Flopsy Bunny, the Tailor of Gloucester and Mrs Tittlemouse.
These coins have not been released into circulation yet and mintage figures remain unknown for now, but all four coins are now available to buy in Brilliant Uncirculated quality and collectors remain eager to snap up these coins for their Beatrix Potter collections.
Paddington™ 50ps
But that’s not the end of the story for 50p coin series, because in 2018 The Royal Mint also issued a brand new series celebrating the 60th anniversary of Britain’s most loved bear, Paddington™!
Coin collectors were whipped into a frenzy with the excitement of owning these new 50p coins and it has even been suggested that this could be the most sought-after 50p coin series ever!
Two coins have now been released and are available to purchase in Brilliant Uncirculated quality, the first featuring Paddington wearing his iconic mack, sat on his suitcase at the station and the second showing the delightful bear waving a Union Jack flag outside Buckingham Palace.
This is the first time Paddington has featured on UK coinage and the world of coin collecting has been abuzz with the news of the release ever since The Royal Mint announced the coins would be issued earlier this year.
Have you secured your 2018 Paddington 50p coins yet?
£2 coins!
Following a review of the United Kingdom’s coinage in 1996, the decision was made that a general-circulation £2 coin was needed and so the bi-metallic coin we know today was introduced. Whilst these coins are now in circulation and not reserved just for collectors, they have still become increasingly collectable, with a number of £2 coin series being released over the years.
Commonwealth Games £2s
The 2002 Commonwealth Games £2 coins are known as some of the scarcest £2 coins now in circulation, with even the largest mintage (Scotland) set at just 771,750!
But the coin you really need to be looking out for is the Northern Ireland £2. Just 485,000 coins were ever struck making it officially the UK’s rarest £2 coin.
At first glance, you might struggle to spot the difference between them. They all feature the same running athlete trailing a banner behind, but each has a different cameo, representing each of the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom.
Are you lucky enough to have these coins in your collection?
Shakespeare £2s
In 2016, three different £2 coins were issued to honour Shakespeare’s tragedies, comedies and historical works and were released into circulation just in time for the 400th anniversary of his death on the 23nd April 2016.
The coins were certainly amongst the favourites of collectors that year with the Skull design in particular receiving a lot of attention, and not just from collectors.
Each coin pays tribute to one of Shakespeare’s major genres and the reverse designs take inspiration from his most famous plays, including Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Macbeth.
Which Shakespeare £2 is your favourite?
World War One £2s
To mark the centenary of the First World War, the Royal Mint revealed a five-year commemoration of the wartime journey from outbreak to armistice.
The first coin in the series bears sculptor John Bergdahl’s depiction of Lord Kitchener’s famous call to arms alongside the words YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU. The British Secretary of War became synonymous with the enlistment campaign when war was declared on 4th August 1914.
Following coins in the series have featured renowned military artist David Rowlands design for the reverse of the Navy coin, Tim Sharp’s Army design honouring the ‘Pals Battalions’, the Aviation design by ‘Tangerine’ and Stephen Raw’s interpretation of Armistice which features the words ‘The truth untold, the pity of war’, from the Wilfred Owen poem Strange Meeting.
As this year marks the centenary of the end of World War One, this coin series is particularly poignant.
RAF £2s
In this special centenary year, the Royal Air Force has been commemorated with a series of five brand new £2 coins!
The Royal Air Force was formed on April 1st 1918, in the early years of aviation. It was the world’s first independent air force, and is recognised today all over the world for its capability, courage and innovation, which has been represented on these striking coin designs, depicting some of the most iconic RAF aircraft ever flown.
These coins haven’t been released into circulation yet, but are already proving to be hugely popular with collectors and RAF supporters alike.
The first coin in the series features the synonymous RAF Badge, whilst the other four coin designs represent aircraft including the Spitfire, Vulcan, Sea King and F35 Lightning.
This striking series has been voted in second place by Change Checkers which is a fantastic achievement for these brand new coins.
A-Z 10p coins!
26 new UK commemorative 10p coins were released into circulation this year and collectors across the country have joined the nationwide coin hunt to get their hands on these hugely sought-after little coins.
The coins each feature a different letter from A-Z and each letter celebrates a different Great British icon, from Angel of the North to Zebra Crossing and everything in between (my personal favourite is ‘G’ for Greenwich Meantime).
We know that 2.6 million have been released so far overall, but exact mintages for each design are not yet available and so collectors are desperately trying to build up their collection of all 26 coins.
Whilst reports have come in from people starting to find these coins, they are certainly proving tricky to get hold of and it seems that they are quickly being snapped up by eagle eyed collectors!
These little coins have made the top three as voted by Change Checkers, but have you found any in your change and which design is your favourite?
Results of the vote!
It’s always worth taking time to appreciate the fantastic designs we see on UK coinage and I must say that each of these series is truly unique and impressive in its own way.
So now you’ve been brought up to speed with the top UK coin series, take a look at which series Change Checkers have voted as their favourite.
See the results of the vote here:
Which UK coins are missing from your collection?
Click here to views all UK coins available to purchase in Brilliant Uncirculated quality >>