Great Fire of London £2 (2016)

The Great Fire of London £2 had a modest circulation issue by £2 standards, so collectors keep an eye out for it and even a coin from change sells above face value. Sharp flames and clear boats count for more than anything on a circulated example, as wear soon flattens the fine detail of the burning skyline. Brilliant uncirculated coins, sold in The Royal Mint's pack with its booklet and in capsules, are worth more than any circulated coin.

With 1,625,000 struck for circulation, the Great Fire of London £2 is the fifteenth rarest of the 44 ranked £2 designs and has the 53rd lowest mintage of all 194 circulating UK designs. That puts it in the Scarce band, for mintages 1,000,000 to 2,499,999.

The next rarer £2 is the London Underground Roundel £2, with 1,560,000 struck, and the next more common is the United Nations £2, with 1,668,575 struck.

Look for a city skyline with tall flames rising above it, and small boats on the water in the front of the scene. That view across the river marks out the Great Fire of London £2 coin. THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON is written around the gold-coloured ring between two years, and TWO POUNDS sits at the bottom of this side, so the Queen's side shows only her titles. The edge lettering reads THE WHOLE CITY IN DREADFUL FLAMES.

The Great Fire of London began at a bakery in Pudding Lane on 2 September. The houses were built close together and mostly of wood, so it spread quickly and was soon out of control; buildings had to be pulled down to stop it, and by the end about a third of the city had been destroyed. Modern London was rebuilt from the ruins. For the 350th anniversary in 2016, Aaron West, one of The Royal Mint's own designers, drew the scene as a Londoner escaping on the river would have seen it: boats on the Thames in the foreground, and flames rising high over the city beyond. The year of the fire and 2016 sit either side of THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON around the ring, with TWO POUNDS at the bottom. The booklet in The Royal Mint's pack looked at eyewitness accounts such as that of Samuel Pepys, and at the part played by the Mint's home at the time, the Tower of London. The edge reads THE WHOLE CITY IN DREADFUL FLAMES, and Jody Clark's fifth portrait is on the obverse.