Bill of Rights £2 (1989)

The Bill of Rights £2 was made in far greater numbers than its Scottish partner, so it sells for less in every condition. Among loose coins, sharp detail on the crown, the interlaced letters and the mace counts most, as those raised parts wear first. Coins from Royal Mint brilliant uncirculated packs sell above circulated ones, and a sealed pack does better than a coin that has been taken out. Proof strikes from 1989 are priced as separate collector pieces.

With 4,392,825 struck for circulation, the Bill of Rights £2 is the 24th rarest of the 44 ranked £2 designs and has the 93rd lowest mintage of all 194 circulating UK designs. That puts it in the Uncommon band, for mintages 2,500,000 to 9,999,999.

The next rarer £2 is the Shakespeare Comedies £2, with 4,355,000 struck, and the next more common is the Dove of Peace £2, with 4,394,566 struck.

Read the rim before anything else. This coin says TERCENTENARY OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS, while the Scottish coin of the same year swaps in CLAIM OF RIGHT. The crown above the W and M cypher is St Edward's Crown here, not the Crown of Scotland. Below the mace are two dates, one above the other, and the edge is milled with no inscription. It is a single-metal, all-yellow coin with Raphael Maklouf's portrait on the heads side.

The Bill of Rights, enacted in the late seventeenth century after William and Mary accepted the throne, set limits on the powers of the monarch and laid down the rights of Parliament. The Bill of Rights turned three hundred years old in 1989, and The Royal Mint struck two £2 coins for the tercentenary: this one for England and Wales, and a Claim of Right coin for Scotland. John Lobban designed both. On this reverse the royal cypher, W and M woven together, sits over a horizontal parliamentary mace, the mace of the House of Commons. St Edward's Crown is placed above the cypher, and the year of the Bill and 1989 are stacked beneath it. TERCENTENARY OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS runs round the rim from the lower left, over the top and down to the lower right, leaving the bottom of the coin clear. It is struck in nickel-brass with a milled edge that carries no lettering, and Raphael Maklouf's portrait of the Queen is on the obverse.

In the Bill of Rights set it was issued in 1989 together with the Claim of Right £2.