Shakespeare Histories £2 (2016)

More Histories coins were struck for circulation than of either other Shakespeare design, so the crown and sword £2 is the easiest of the three to find, and a coin from change is worth face value. Collectors pay a premium only for brilliant uncirculated coins from Royal Mint packs. A sealed pack sells for more than a loose coin with handling marks on the crown.

With 5,655,000 struck for circulation, the Shakespeare Histories £2 is the 32nd rarest of the 44 ranked £2 designs and has the 112th lowest mintage of all 194 circulating UK designs. That puts it in the Uncommon band, for mintages 2,500,000 to 9,999,999.

The next rarer £2 is the Euro 96 £2, with 5,141,350 struck, and the next more common is the Lord Kitchener £2, with 5,720,000 struck.

A crown with a dagger thrust through its middle is the Histories design. The legend WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE and the date 2016 appear on every coin in the set, so check the image: a jester's cap and stick means the Comedies coin, and a skull beside a rose means the Tragedies. The words THE HOLLOW CROWN on the edge confirm the Histories coin.

John Bergdahl designed a set of three £2 coins for 2016, the year that marked four centuries since Shakespeare died, and each one sums up a single type of play. The Histories coin stands for dramas such as the Richard plays, and Bergdahl reduced them to one image: a crown with a dagger driven through its middle. There is no figure or scene, only the crown and the blade, with WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE around the brass ring and 2016 beneath, between two flowering sprigs. The edge carries THE HOLLOW CROWN, a phrase from Richard II, which ties the lettering to the picture. Because the blade can look like a sword at a glance, many people call it the crown and sword £2 coin. Jody Clark's fifth portrait of Queen Elizabeth II is on the obverse.

It was one of the three coins in the Shakespeare set issued in 2016.