J.R.R. Tolkien £2 (2023)

With no circulation strikes, the J.R.R. Tolkien £2 is bought either as a brilliant uncirculated coin or as a proof. The Royal Mint pack, which tells the story of his life and work, sells best when still sealed, with coins on cards or in capsules next. The fine lines of the runic band show scratches and rubbing easily, so check it under a light before buying a loose coin, and look for fingerprints on the smooth field around the monogram. The silver proof, piedfort and gold proof are valued as separate coins.

The J.R.R. Tolkien £2 was not issued for circulation, so it has no rarity rank.

The reverse of the Tolkien £2 has no portrait. The centre holds a single monogram of interlinked initials, ringed by a band of sharp, angular interlacing that looks like runes. On the yellow outer ring, J R R TOLKIEN is spaced out across the top without full stops, the birth and death years sit left and right with 1973 on the right, and WRITER · POET · SCHOLAR runs along the bottom. The obverse shows King Charles III, and the edge reads NOT ALL THOSE WHO WANDER ARE LOST.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was a philologist, a scholar of languages, who taught at the University of Leeds before becoming a professor at Oxford. Years earlier he had served as a second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers and spent four months in the trenches during the Somme offensive. The Hobbit, published in 1937, brought him a wide readership, and The Lord of the Rings, which followed in 1954 and 1955, is widely seen as the model for modern fantasy fiction, set in the invented world of Middle-earth. The Royal Mint marked the 50th anniversary of his death in 2023 with this coin by David Lawrence, who had earlier designed the Agatha Christie £2 of 2020. Instead of a portrait or a scene from the books, Lawrence chose Tolkien's own trademark monogram and circled it with an angular band inspired by runes. The outer ring names him as J R R TOLKIEN with the years of his life at either side and WRITER · POET · SCHOLAR beneath. The edge quotes NOT ALL THOSE WHO WANDER ARE LOST from the poem The Riddle of Strider in The Fellowship of the Ring.