WITH wallets stretched as a cost of living crisis rages on, you may need to turn to the change in your pocket to make a profit.
Sometimes it’s even the most unsuspecting coins, stuffed down the side of the sofa, that can make you a mint. We explore if you could be quids-in.
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It happens when a coin is worth much more that its face value – that’s how you spot if you’re secretly sitting on a mint.
If a rare coin catches the interest of the right buyer, they could pay almost 40 times the value inscribed on its design.
So a £2 would be worth just that at the corner shop, or in a vending machine, could actually be worth more to someone who spots it as a rarity.
It’s usually because it has a unique design, or they know that there’s not many copies kicking about.
There are 55 different £2 coin designs currently in circulation and they can can fetch as much as £70 if they’re in the right condition.
ChangeChecker’s scarcity index ranks them all to determine which is the rarest – and which ones to look out for.
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The latest update came in May this year.
Each coin will get a number between one and 100 to indicate how hard it is to find, as well as how in demand it is are.
The higher the number, the rarer the coin – which also means the more likely you’ll be in-the-money too.
But in general, what you need to know is that the lower the mintage, the rarer the coin – and the rarer the coin the more valuable it is.
That means not many have been produced, which is more appealing to collectors as they’re harder to get a hold of, and they’ll pay more for a copy of their own.
Here’s which coins came up trumps and how much circulated versions – the ones cropping up in your change – have recently sold for on eBay.
1. 2002 Commonwealth Games Northern Ireland – £67
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The 2002 Commonwealth Games Northern Ireland £2 coin tops ChangeChecker’s scarcity index list.
It’s stood its ground too, as the coin has topped the charts for the past two updates.
But that’s not all, one has recently sold on eBay for as much as £67 – making it an impressive sale worth 33 times more than the coin’s face value.
There are just 485,500 of these in circulation.
You can check which version of the coin you have by looking at the flag in the circle – it will either depict the English, Northern Irish, Scottish, or Welsh flag.
2. 2002 Commonwealth Games England – £33
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The Commonwealth Games coin for England has rocketed to second place on the scarcity index.
There are just 650,500 of these in circulation.
And one sold on eBay for £33.32
3. 2002 Commonwealth Games Scotland – £46
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The 2002 Scottish Commonwealth Games coin comes in third place on the scarcity index.
Though not as rare as its other Commonwealth counterparts, one still managed to sell for an impressive £46 on eBay.
That’s 23 times more than its face value of £2.
There are 771,750 of these in circulation.
4. Olympic centenary – £13
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Carrying on the sporting theme, the Olympic centenary £2 marked 100 years of the modern games in 2008, and there are 910,000 in circulation.
One version sold on eBay for £13 which is around 10 times its face value.
5. London 2012 Handover – £53
At the end of each Olympic Games, the next host city of the Games is celebrated with a flag handover ceremony.
In 2012 we gave the flag to Rio to take on the next tournament.
That event was immortalised on the design of a £2 coin, with just 845,000 released into circulation.
One in a sealed pack managed to sell for exactly £52.75 on eBay just last month.
6. Olympic handover – £33
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Still in the top ten is the Olympic Handover coin.
This £2 details Beijing in 2008 handing over the Olympics to London for 2012, and shows the Olympic flag and two hands shaking.
One sold for precisely £32.82 in April this year.
There are 918,000 of these in circulation.
7. King James Bible – £20.50
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Next on the list is a coin showing the King James Bible.
One sold for £20.50 in February on eBay.
According to Change Checker, there are 975,000 in circulation.
8. London Underground Roundel – £27
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There are more than 1.5 million of these London Underground themed coins in circulation.
One showing the famous roundel of the capital’s transport system sold for £27 back in January after 13 bids were placed.
It’s a little lower down the scarcity index currently, but it’s still popular with collectors.
9. Mary Rose – £21
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A circulated £2 showing the famous Mary Rose ship sold on eBay for £21.
There are just over one million in circulation.
And that makes it 9th on Change Checker’s scarcity index.
10. 2015 First World War (navy) – £14
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Launched in 2015 as part of a set of £2 coins that mark the centenary of WWI, 100 of these two pounds were given to HMS Belfast.
Coin hunters flocked to the ship to track them down.
We found a eBay listing where it sold for £14.25.
11. Magna Carta – £23
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The Magna Carta £2 sold recently for over £20 on eBayThe Magna Carta coin celebrates the 800th Anniversary of the Signing of Magna Carta.
The £2 sold for a tenner back in March on eBay.
It has been in circulation since 2015, and there are currently 1,495,000 of them in people’s purses, banks and tills across the country.
It is not just £2 coins which could net you a windfall; rare £1 coins also sell for more than their face value, as do 10p coins.
You could also check your wallet for any loose change – here are the six of the rarest and most valuable coins.
And an ultra-rare silver 2p error coin was found by a collector in Kent, and it could be worth a whopping £1,350.
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This post first appeared on thesun.co.uk
