Britannia Inverted Effigy £2 (2015)

The size of the rotation drives the value: the premium is for a coin turned as far as the recorded examples, with the Queen close to upside down. The error turns up on circulation coins, so some wear is expected, but a clean coin with a sharp portrait sells better. Genuine coins are dated 2015, the first year of the Britannia £2 coin.

No circulation mintage has been published for the Britannia Inverted Effigy £2, so it has no rarity rank.

Hold a Britannia £2 dated 2015 with Britannia upright, then turn it over from side to side, like the page of a book. On a normal coin the Queen's portrait now faces you the right way up. On the inverted effigy her head is turned round so far that it sits nearly upside down. Check the coin in your hand rather than a listing photograph, because a photo of either side can be rotated to fake the effect. The date is on the Queen's side, so confirm it reads 2015.

When a coin is struck, one die makes the portrait side and another makes the reverse, and the two are fixed so that each side sits the right way up when you turn the coin over. In 2015, the first year of Antony Dufort's Britannia £2 coin, one of those dies worked loose and turned while coins were being struck; that is the explanation The Royal Mint gave. The result is a normal Britannia reverse, with the helmeted figure, trident and Union flag shield all in place, backed by Jody Clark's fifth portrait of the Queen rotated clockwise by well over a quarter turn, so far that she is close to upside down when Britannia stands upright. No figure has been published for how many coins were affected.