Brunel the Man £2 (2006)

A Brunel the Man £2 taken from change trades at face value, however clean it looks, because so many were struck for circulation. Collectors pay more for the brilliant uncirculated version sold by The Royal Mint from February 2006, both on its own and in the two-coin Brunel pack with the Paddington Station design. A pack that is still sealed and undamaged is worth more than a loose coin. Among loose coins, sharp detail in the hat, face and chain and a surface free of scratches count most.

With 7,928,250 struck for circulation, the Brunel the Man £2 is the 37th rarest of the 44 ranked £2 designs and has the 131st 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 Act of Union £2, with 7,545,000 struck, and the next more common is the Charles Dickens £2, with 8,190,000 struck.

Look for a man in a tall top hat with a cigar on the tails side. Chain links circle the outer ring. The Paddington Station coin issued in the same year shows the framework of a station roof and the word BRUNEL instead of a face. For a final check, read the edge: it should say ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL ENGINEER along with his dates. Both 2006 Brunel coins carry Ian Rank-Broadley's portrait of the Queen, so the tails side is what tells them apart.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel was an English civil and mechanical engineer, best remembered for the tunnels, viaducts and bridges of the Great Western Railway and for the Clifton Suspension Bridge across the River Avon. In 2006, the year of his bicentenary, The Royal Mint struck two £2 coins, one honouring the man and one his work. This is the portrait coin, and it was designed by Rod Kelly. Brunel appears in the centre in his tall top hat, a cigar between his lips, set against two of his engineering works, one of them the Royal Albert Bridge. A band of linked chain runs round the gold-coloured outer ring, broken by TWO POUNDS at the top and the date 2006 at the bottom. The lettered edge completes the tribute with ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL ENGINEER and the years of his birth and death. On the heads side is Ian Rank-Broadley's fourth portrait of Queen Elizabeth II.

In the Brunel set it was issued in 2006 together with the Brunel Paddington Station £2.