Olympic handover, London to Rio £2 (2012)

The Rio handover £2 went into circulation, fewer were struck than of the 2008 Beijing coin, and circulated examples sell for more than face value. Condition decides where a circulated coin sits, and those that keep crisp flag folds, fingers and baton are worth the most. The brilliant uncirculated pack, released in August 2012 while the Games were under way, sits above coins from change, with sealed packs preferred.

With 845,000 struck for circulation, the Olympic handover, London to Rio £2 is the seventh rarest of the 44 ranked £2 designs and has the 35th 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 Commonwealth Games, Scotland £2, with 771,750 struck, and the next more common is the Olympic Centenary £2, with 910,000 struck.

The relay baton is the detail to look for. One hand grips it at the upper right, a second reaches for it from the lower left, and a flag twists between them. RIO 2016 at the lower right of the outer ring confirms the coin. The 2008 Beijing handover £2 also carries the London 2012 emblem and the same edge words, but its centre shows a flag with the Olympic rings held between two hands, and its ring reads BEIJING 2008.

At the London 2012 closing ceremony on 12 August, the President of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, handed the Olympic flag to the Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, and a short show of Brazilian music and dance followed. The Royal Mint marked the moment with a second handover £2 coin, completing the pair begun by the Beijing coin of 2008. This time the reverse went to Jonathan Olliffe, who chose a relay baton as his symbol. A hand holding the baton reaches down from the upper right while another stretches up from the lower left to take it. Between them a Union flag sweeps across the coin and twists into the flag of Brazil. LONDON 2012 is lettered at the upper left of the ring and RIO 2016 at the lower right, with the London 2012 emblem at the very top. The edge repeats the lettering of the earlier coin, I CALL UPON THE YOUTH OF THE WORLD, from the closing speech in which the IOC President asks the youth of the world to assemble again in four years.

In the Olympic handover set it came after the Olympic handover, Beijing to London £2 of 2008.