How do coins become worth more?

HOW DO coins become more valuable than their face value?

Surely, a pound coin is worth exactly that, £1.

Or is it? Well, for various reasons this is not always the case and you may have something much mre valuable in your pocket or piggy bank.

Remember that 20p coin without the date on that was selling for hundreds of pounds? Or the 2p coin that is still selling for a small fortune?

Every now and again there’s a media storm that sees Brits scrambling for their wallets to sort through their change and search out the coins that are worth far more than the value stamped on them.

Well, from the coppers to the silvers to the pounds, we decided to ask an expert – Philip Mussell, the director of Coin News – for some advice on what coins belong in the piggy bank and what belongs on eBay . How often do coins in circulation suddenly become ‘valuable’?

There are a few different ways this happens, explains Philip.

“One is when a mistake is made by the Royal Mint, like a 20p without a date, for example, or a 1983 2p coin accidentally printed with the old wording ‘ New Pence’. Mistakes are eminently collectable.

“Other collectibles are redesigns or limited edition releases. For example, an Olympic 50p with a swimmer was recently re-released.

“The first minting had a swimmer with waves obscuring her face but the designer didn’t want that, so they unobscured her face and made it clear of wavy lines. That’s now quite collectable.”

If I find a collectable coin what should I do?

The time to sell is usually when the media storm breaks and the value - and demand - shoots up.

“The thing you have to understand is how much demand there is, how many collectors want one? Take the Kew Gardens coins, for example, they estimate there are 200,000 out there .

“How many collectors want them? Probably not 200,000 – demand is highest at the beginning because that’s when those collectors are looking for them. Once they’ve got one, they won’t want another one; that’s not how collecting works.

“Very rare coins like the 1983 2p are so rare that they may very well go up, at least by inflation. But those other coins you probably want to act fast if you want to sell,” adds Philip.

How do I spot the valuable coins?

The simplest way is to just keep your eyes peeled, and read about them.

“It can be big news when a coin with a mistake is discovered, it makes the papers. But you can find out more about the coins that people want by reading Coin News or following us on Twitter @coinsandmedals.

“The more you read about them, the more likely you are to spot them.”

The most valuable £1 coins Royal Arms £1 The Royal Arms is a common design which is sometimes ignored, but remember to look out for one with a 2008 date – that’s actually the fourth rarest and worth about £5.99 to a collector.

Edinburgh £1 The 2011 Edinburgh design is the only £1 coin with a mintage below 1million according to Coin Checker – but while its classed as ‘valuable’ it’ll only fetch in around £3-5 on eBay.

Is your £2 coin worth a fortune? Commonwealth £2 A special coin minted to commemorate the Northern Ireland 2002 Commonwealth Games is one of the rarest £2 out there, as fewer than 500,000 were minted. They can sell online for anything between £15 and £25. ‘Typo’ Guy Fawkes coin The Royal Mint released a commemorative 50p in 2005 on the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder plot but some of those had a slightly embarrassing typo and read ‘Pemember, pemember the Fifth of November’. They sell online for between £5 and £7, typically.

Charles Dickens £2 These were released in 2012 to commemorate the 200th birthday of the famous author, with the reverse of the coin featuring the titles of his better known books. These can now sell online for around £4, sometimes more if in particularly good condition.