King James Bible £2 (2011)

Fewer King James Bible £2 coins were struck for circulation than most commemoratives of the period, so collectors pull them out of change and even worn ones sell above face value. The better the lettering, the stronger the price: the black-letter text is fine, and wear soon blurs it. Brilliant uncirculated coins in The Royal Mint's pack or capsule sit above any circulated coin, and a pack kept complete does best.

With 975,000 struck for circulation, the King James Bible £2 is the tenth rarest of the 44 ranked £2 designs and has the 39th 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 Olympic handover, Beijing to London £2, with 918,000 struck, and the next more common is the Mary Rose £2, with 1,040,000 struck.

The King James Bible £2 has black-letter text in the centre, and half of it is in mirror image. Read the right-hand panel: In the beginning was the Word. The left-hand panel shows the same words reversed, like a printing block. KING JAMES BIBLE runs across the top of the ring and the two anniversary years run along the bottom. TWO POUNDS appears only on the Queen's side.

King James VI of Scotland, who was also James I of England and Ireland, ordered a new English translation of the Bible that would be accurate and bring different parts of the church together. First published early in the seventeenth century and often called the Authorised Version, it was so widely read that its phrasing still shapes the English language. The Royal Mint marked its 400th anniversary in 2011 with a reverse by Paul Stafford and Benjamin Wright about printing itself. The words In the beginning was the Word, the first line of St John's Gospel, are set in a copy of the black-letter type of the first edition and shown twice. On the left they appear as a printer's block would carry them, raised and back to front; on the right they appear as the recessed, readable text of the printed page. KING JAMES BIBLE sits above and the anniversary dates below, with no denomination on this side. The edge reads THE AUTHORISED VERSION, and Ian Rank-Broadley's portrait of the Queen is on the obverse.