Mary Rose £2 (2011)

The Mary Rose had one of the smaller circulation issues among £2 coins, and collectors hunting for it keep even worn examples above face value. Sharp detail in the hull and sails is what separates a good circulated coin from a tired one. Brilliant uncirculated coins in The Royal Mint's own Mary Rose pack or in a capsule are worth more again because they never saw use.

With 1,040,000 struck for circulation, the Mary Rose £2 is the eleventh rarest of the 44 ranked £2 designs and has the 40th 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 King James Bible £2, with 975,000 struck, and the next more common is the Bank of England £2, with 1,443,116 struck.

On the Mary Rose £2 a single sailing ship heading to the right fills the centre. THE MARY ROSE is written across the top of the gold-coloured ring and TWO POUNDS across the bottom, with a small rose at each side between them. The edge reads YOUR NOBLEST SHIPPE followed by a year, in old spelling.

The Mary Rose was one of Henry VIII's warships, built at Portsmouth and later rebuilt, and she sank during an attack on a French fleet. Why she went down is still not known. Her wreck was found in 1971 and raised in 1982, together with weapons, sailing gear and supplies, and the ship is now on show at the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth, close to where she was built. John Bergdahl's reverse for the 2011 £2 marks the 500th anniversary of her maiden voyage. He based the ship on a picture made in the Tudor period, a pictorial survey of Henry VIII's navy drawn the year after she sank, and shows her under sail heading right. Around the ring, a cartouche carries THE MARY ROSE at the top and TWO POUNDS at the bottom, with a rose on either side. The edge inscription, YOUR NOBLEST SHIPPE, is followed by the year of her launch. Ian Rank-Broadley's portrait of the Queen is on the obverse.