D 10p: Double Decker Bus

Two things move the price of a double decker bus 10p: its date and its condition. Fewer coins were struck for circulation with the 2019 date, and that year usually commands more than 2018. On a worn coin the little passengers in the windows and the edges of the D soften first, so a coin with crisp windows is worth more. Uncirculated coins from the Royal Mint's cards and pouches sit above those found in change.

With 304,000 struck for circulation, the D 10p (Double Decker Bus) is the joint sixth rarest of the 30 ranked 10p designs and has the joint eighth lowest mintage of all 194 circulating UK designs. That puts it in the Very rare band, for mintages under 500,000.

The next rarer 10p is the Q 10p (Queuing), with 303,000 struck, and the next more common is the Capercaillie 10p, with 7,100,000 struck.

Its lowest circulation mintage was in 2019, with 84,000 struck.

Hold the coin so the bus runs across it: you should see passengers sitting in the windows of both decks, a driver at the front on the left and a big D covering the middle of the bus. No other lettering appears on that side. The year is on the heads side, at the end of the legend around the Queen, and reads 2018 or 2019. The coin matches any modern 10p in size and colour, so the bus itself is the thing to look for.

The double-decker bus earned the letter D in the Royal Mint's 2018 A to Z, which the Mint told as a journey around Britain in rhyme; the bus verse jokes that stylish travel by double-decker can be slow going. The Royal Mint traces the London bus back to the late 1820s, when George Shillibeer began running a horse-drawn omnibus from Paddington into the City, and to the London General Omnibus Company, founded in the mid-1850s. The red double-decker has since become a symbol of London recognised around the world. The coin shows a bus side-on, filling the width of the design, with seated passengers visible on both decks and a driver in the cab at the front. A tall D is laid across the middle of the bus, so the letter and the vehicle read as one picture. The design is credited to The Royal Mint Team.

It was one of the 26 coins in the A to Z set issued in 2018.