The

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

two pound (£2)

coin A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order t ...

is a denomination of sterling coinage. Its obverse has featured the profile of Queen Elizabeth II since the coin’s introduction. Three different portraits of the Queen have been used, with the current design by Jody Clark being introduced in 2015. The reverse design features

Britannia Britannia () is the national personification of Britain as a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield. An image first used in classical antiquity, the Latin ''Britannia'' was the name variously applied to the British Isles, Great ...

. The coin was introduced on 15 June 1998 (coins minted 1997) after a review of the United Kingdom's coinage decided that a general-circulation £2 coin was needed.Two Pound Coin Designs and Specifications
Royal Mint The new

bi-metallic coin Bi-metallic coins are coins consisting of two ('' bi-'') metals or alloys, generally arranged with an outer ring around a contrasting center. Common circulating examples include the €1, €2, United Kingdom £1 and £2, Canadian $2, Sou ...

design replaced a series of commemorative, uni-metallic coins which were issued between 1986 and 1996 to celebrate special occasions. Although legal tender, those earlier coins had never been common in everyday circulation. As of March 2014 there were an estimated 417 million £2 coins in circulation with an estimated face value of £834 million. Beyond the usual commemorative versions, no standard two pound coins have been minted for general circulation since 2016, although examples have been issued in uncirculated sets at a premium. This was because the concurrent introduction of the new version of the one pound coin had put enough £2 (and 20 pence) coins back into circulation, as people emptied coin jars primarily for the older one pound coin that was due to be withdrawn. £2 coins are

legal tender Legal tender is a form of money that courts of law are required to recognize as satisfactory payment for any monetary debt. Each jurisdiction determines what is legal tender, but essentially it is anything which when offered ("tendered") in ...

to any amount when offered in repayment of a debt; however, the coin's legal tender status is not normally relevant for everyday transactions.

Design

The original reverse of the coin, designed by

Bruce Rushin Bruce Rushin is an art teacher and coin designer from Brundall in Norfolk, United Kingdom. In 1997, Rushin entered (and won) a competition by submitting a design for the British Two Pound coin. Rushin had no previous experience in coin design. Th ...

, is an abstract design symbolising the history of technological achievement, accompanied by the words TWO POUNDS above, and the year of minting below. This was the first

to be produced for circulation in Britain since the

tin farthing Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, ...

with a copper plug produced in 1692, and is the highest denomination coin in common circulation in the UK. The coin consists of an outer yellow metal nickel-brass ring made from 76%

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

, 20%

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

, and 4%

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow ...

, and an inner steel-coloured cupro-nickel disc made from 75% copper, 25% nickel. The coin weighs and is in diameter. The design itself was first tried out in 1994 when the Royal Mint produced a short run of demonstration pieces to the new bi-metal standard. These pieces were not for circulation and were simply intended to test the manufacturing process. The coin was technically similar to the version which eventually entered circulation with the Maklouf effigy of Queen Elizabeth II on the obverse and the image of a sailing ship similar to that previously used on the reverse of the pre-decimal halfpenny piece. The inscription on the reverse read ROYAL MINT TRIAL 1994 with an edge inscription based on the one pound coin which read DECUS ET TUTAMEN ANNO REGNI XLVI, meaning "An ornament and a safeguard – n the46th year of erreign". The 1994 pieces were never legal tender but were eventually released for sale as part of a presentation set in 1998. At the same time in 1994 the Royal Mint produced a mono-metallic trial two-pound coin, with the same ship reverse and inscription, but otherwise similar to the earlier commemorative coins. These were never issued in presentation sets, and so are much scarcer than the bi-metallic version. Because of technical difficulties, the 1997-dated coins, which bear the effigy of Queen Elizabeth II by

Raphael Maklouf Raphael David Maklouf (born 10 December 1937) is a British sculptor, best known for designing an effigy of Queen Elizabeth II used on the coins of many Commonwealth nations. Maklouf was born in Jerusalem, to a Jewish family; his father was S ...

, were not released to circulation until June 1998 (the same time as the 1998-dated coins). 1998 and later dated coins bear the effigy of the Queen by

Ian Rank-Broadley Ian Rank-Broadley FRBS (born 1952) is a British sculptor who has produced many acclaimed works, among which are several designs for British coinage and the memorial statue of Princess Diana at Kensington Palace in London unveiled on her 60th ...

. The Maklouf-effigy coins bear the inscription ELIZABETH II DEI GRATIA REGINA F D on the obverse; the Rank-Broadley coins bear the inscription ELIZABETH II DEI GRA REG FID DEF. The reverse of the regular-issue coin, designed by Bruce Rushin, bears a concentric design symbolically representing technological development from the

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...

, through the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

and the Electronic Age to the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

, with the inscription TWO POUNDS above the design and the date below. An oddity of the design is that it depicts nineteen interlocking gears. Because there is an odd number of them, the mechanism could not actually turn. The coin has the edge

inscription Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the w ...

STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS, a quote taken from a letter by

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a " natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...

to Robert Hooke, in which he describes how his work was built on the knowledge of those that had gone before him. "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Newton was Warden and later Master of the Royal Mint. In February 2015, the Royal Mint announced a new design featuring

by Antony Dufort replacing the previous design. The new coins feature the edge inscription QUATUOR MARIA VINDICO, meaning "I claim the four seas", an inscription previously featured on coins bearing the image of Britannia. The comparative rarity of the Maklouf-effigy coins has led to an

urban myth An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...

that they are much more valuable than the other coins, but this is not true – there were over 13 million 1997-dated £2 coins issued. Another urban myth about the coin is that putting it in the freezer overnight causes the cupro-nickel centre to pop out, a claim which had been true of some early mintings of the similarly bimetallic Canadian 2 dollar coin.

Variants

In addition to the standard designs there have been several variant reverse designs used on the £2 coin to commemorate important events. These are summarised in the table below.

"Inverted effigy" coins

In 2015, a small number of £2 Coins entered circulation that featured the Queen’s head rotated clockwise by approximately 150 degrees. The Royal Mint stated that the misalignment of the Queen’s effigy was "almost certainly the result of one of the dies working loose and rotating during the striking process". Change Checker, a coin dealing website, suggest that the Inverted Effigy may have affected as few as around just 3,250 coins.

Status as legal tender

Current £2 coins are

to any amount. However, "legal tender" has a very specific and narrow meaning which relates only to the repayment of debt to a creditor, not to everyday shopping or other transactions. Specifically, coins of particular denominations are said to be "legal tender" when a creditor must by law accept them in redemption of a debt. The term does not mean - as is often thought - that a shopkeeper has to accept a particular type of currency in payment. A shopkeeper is under no obligation to accept any specific type of payment, whether legal tender or not; conversely they have the discretion to accept any payment type they wish.

Mintages

Notes

References

External links

Royal Mint – £2 coin

The Pemember 'error' on the £2 Gunpowder Plot commemorative

Two Pounds, Coin Type from United Kingdom - Online Coin Club
{{DEFAULTSORT:Two Pounds (British Decimal Coin) Coins of the United Kingdom Bi-metallic coins Two-base-unit coins