Commonwealth Games £2 (1986)

Although it was legal tender, the 1986 £2 never became common in everyday change, and even worn coins sell for more than face value. Condition sets most of the price: rubbing on the thistle head and the laurel tips, and scratches on the flat arms of the saltire, pull a coin down quickly. Brilliant uncirculated coins sold in Royal Mint packs fetch more than loose circulated ones, and a pack that is still sealed does best of all.

With 8,212,184 struck for circulation, the Commonwealth Games 1986 £2 is the 39th rarest of the 44 ranked £2 designs and has the 133rd 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 Charles Dickens £2, with 8,190,000 struck, and the next more common is the Abolition of the Slave Trade £2, with 8,445,000 struck.

Look for a thistle on a diagonal cross, circled by laurel leaves, with 1986 at the top. The whole coin is one yellow metal with no silver-coloured centre, and it is heavier than any two-colour £2 coin. The words TWO POUNDS are on the heads side beside Raphael Maklouf's portrait of the Queen, not on the tails. Round the milled edge you should find XIII COMMONWEALTH GAMES SCOTLAND 1986. No varieties of this coin are recorded.

The XIII Commonwealth Games were held in Edinburgh in 1986, and The Royal Mint marked them with a £2 coin, the first British coin ever issued for a sporting event. The Games are also remembered for a boycott, with more than half of the eligible nations staying away in protest at Britain's sporting links with South Africa under apartheid. Norman Sillman built his reverse from Scottish emblems. A thistle sits in the centre inside a laurel wreath that opens at the top, and behind them the saltire of St Andrew stretches its arms out towards the rim. The date 1986 sits above the thistle, between the tips of the laurel branches. This side carries no denomination: TWO POUNDS appears on the obverse with the Queen's titles, around Raphael Maklouf's portrait of Elizabeth II. The coin is one piece of nickel-brass, and its edge is lettered XIII COMMONWEALTH GAMES SCOTLAND 1986. It began the run of single-metal commemorative £2 coins issued up to 1996.