25 years of the £2 (2022)

None of the 25 Years of the £2 coins were struck for circulation. They were sold in brilliant uncirculated packs, certified cards and capsules, and as silver, silver piedfort and gold proofs. A scratched or rubbed centre spoils the hidden 25 and lowers the price, and a sealed pack keeps that panel clean.

The 25 years of the £2 was not issued for circulation, so it has no rarity rank.

At first sight this coin looks like any Technology £2 from change: rings of gear wheels and patterns, TWO POUNDS along the top of the outer ring and 1997 along the bottom. Tilt it under a light and the centre gives it away, because the fine lines there show the number 25. Turn it over and the obverse reads 2022, with Jody Clark's portrait of Queen Elizabeth II and a small privy mark of the Iron Age circle. Ordinary Technology coins carry earlier portraits and no hidden number.

The bimetallic £2 coin, first dated 1997 and released into circulation in 1998, was the first UK coin made from two metals, and it remains the largest denomination found in everyday change. For its 25th anniversary in 2022, The Royal Mint went back to the design that launched it: Bruce Rushin's Technology reverse, which appeared on the £2 from 1997 until 2015. Rushin, whose work also includes the 2011 Sailing 50p, had traced technological progress from the Iron Age to the Internet in four concentric rings, one of them a chain of interlocking gear wheels, with TWO POUNDS around the top and the date around the bottom. The anniversary coin keeps all of that, including the original 1997 date. The change is in the centre, where a lenticular panel of fine lines replaces the old pattern and shows the number 25 as the coin catches the light. On the obverse, Jody Clark's portrait of Queen Elizabeth II appears with the Technology design for the first time, alongside the 2022 date and a privy mark shaped like the Iron Age circle from the centre of Rushin's design. The edge keeps the familiar STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS.