Commonwealth Games, England £2 (2002)

The Commonwealth Games England £2 is one of the few circulating £2 coins that is worth more than face value straight from change, because so few were struck. Condition still moves the price: a coin with a sharp athlete, clean flag and readable edge beats a flat, scratched one. Brilliant uncirculated coins are worth more again. Within the set, England is scarcer than Scotland but not as scarce as Wales or Northern Ireland, and prices broadly follow that order.

With 650,500 struck for circulation, the Commonwealth Games, England £2 is the fifth rarest of the 44 ranked £2 designs and has the 33rd lowest mintage of all 194 circulating UK designs. That puts it in the Rare band, for mintages 500,000 to 999,999.

The next rarer £2 is the First World War Royal Navy £2, with 650,000 struck, and the next more common is the Commonwealth Games, Scotland £2, with 771,750 struck.

Every Commonwealth Games £2 shows the same athlete, so check the flag in the small circle to the left of the figure. The England coin has a plain upright cross, the cross of St George. Do not confuse it with the diagonal saltire on the Scotland coin, or with the Ulster Banner on the Northern Ireland coin, whose cross carries extra detail at its centre. The Wales coin shows a dragon. Confirm with XVII COMMONWEALTH GAMES 2002 on the outer ring and SPIRIT OF FRIENDSHIP on the edge.

Manchester hosted the XVII Commonwealth Games in 2002, with the main events held at the newly built City of Manchester Stadium. The four nations of the United Kingdom competed as separate teams, and England finished second in the medal table behind Australia. The Royal Mint matched that arrangement with one reverse by Matthew Bonaccorsi struck in four versions, each with the flag of a different home nation. This is the English one, with the cross of St George set in a small roundel to the left of the athlete. Bonaccorsi drew the moving figure in loose lines, and the banner held aloft sweeps across the upper left of the coin, over both metals. £2 sits to the right of the figure, while XVII COMMONWEALTH GAMES 2002 runs down the right-hand side of the outer ring. The edge reads SPIRIT OF FRIENDSHIP and MANCHESTER 2002, and Ian Rank-Broadley's fourth portrait of Queen Elizabeth II is on the heads side.

It was one of the four coins in the Commonwealth Games 2002 set issued in 2002.