That spare change of yours could be worth a lot more than you first thought if you find one of these four coins in your pocket.
Many Brits often keep coins that have a different design to the standard, simply because they like that they’re unusual.
But some of those unusual coins that have been lying around in a piggy bank somewhere could actually be worth a fortune.
That's because coins featuring minting mistakes, rare designs or other unusual features can often fetch thousands of pounds when sold to the right buyers.
Minting mistakes happen during a coins printing process, and as The Royal Mint prints millions of coins every single day, small mistakes can happen.
However, it’s this type of mistake that can add value to the coin.
Mistakes such as a slightly less clear version of the design being printed, won’t tend to add extra value to the coin, however things such as the wrong date or the wrong metal being used, can bump up the value significantly.
What are the UK’s rarest coins?
There are four coins that are extremely rare but can still be found in the UK, according to experts.
One of the rarest, and most valuable, coins is a two-pence piece that could be worth up to £1,700.
The coin comes from a batch of coppers that were minted in 1983, but feature a mistake that happened during the printing.
Instead of saying “two pence” the coins feature the words “new pence” instead.
You should note though, this misprint is only valuable on coins dated 1983, as this was when the mistake was made.
Some of these have been snapped up on eBay for as much as £1,700, so next time you get some spare change, make sure to check your coppers thoroughly.
There are still a few of them listed on eBay, like this one that’s currently up for sale for £1,295.
Another coin featuring an error is a £2 coin, which was minted in 2007 and is known as the ‘Standing on the Shoulders of Giants’ coin.
Any £2 coin is printed on two different kinds of metal; the middle disk is made from silver cupro-nickel, whilst the outer material is a gold-coloured nickel-brass.
However, due to a mistake during minting, the rare coin was accidentally created using only the nickel-brass metal.
The coin has been authenticated, and can fetch up to £1000 with the right buyer.
Collectable coin series and special editions can fetch big money if they’re from a rare series, like the Kew Gardens 50p piece, featuring the classic pagoda design.
There were only 210,000 of these minted in 2009, and they’ve topped the scarcity index ever since.
As one of the rarest 50p coins you can come across, they’ve been resold to collectors for up to £230 - a massive 460 times its face value.
To celebrate the 2021 London Olympic Games, The Royal Mint also produced a limited edition series of 50 pence coins featuring 29 different sports.
A collection of all 29 could go for around £91 when sold on sites like eBay, with individual ones still fetching at least 15 times their face value.
There are some full collections currently listed on eBay for a massive £139.99, so it might be worth seeing if you can collect all 29.
What should you do if you find one?
If you think you have found a rare or misprinted coin, you can look it up on The Royal Mint’s website where they have a list of all the coins that have ever been circulated.
You can also get your coin authenticated by them, so you can check if it’s legitimate.
You can also use this coin scarcity checker, to see if your spare change is part of a collectible set and whether it has any value.
The scarcity checker measures your coin against others to see how rare it is to come by - the further up it ranks on the index, the rarer it is and the more valuable it could be.
If you’ve definitely got yourself a rare and valuable coin, you can sell it on auction sites like eBay, or at an auction house, where you can hopefully sell it to a high bidder.
Alternatively, you could take it to a coin dealer who can give you an accurate valuation of your coin, and decide where would be best to sell it on.
So, the next time you get a handful of change, it might just be worth checking each coin before you put it in your pocket - you could be sitting on a small fortune.
