A £2 coin was auctioned on eBay for almost £65,000 - but we were able to buy a near identical coin for just £3.49. The limited edition coin was the most expensive item in the collectables and art category of the online marketplace.
The £2 coin was minted in 2007 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which made it illegal to trade slaves inside the British Empire.
It features the year 1807 on one side, with the zero forming parts of a broken chain, and the image of the Queen on the other side, with the edge inscription “am I not a man, and a brother” - a quote which became synonymous with the abolitionist movement and is attributed to Staffordshire master potter Josiah Wedgwood.
A few years ago rumours were flying around the internet that minting errors had vastly inflated the value of this particular £2 coin, but these have been disputed by the Royal Mint. Yet one of these coins caught the eye of a collector who paid a staggering £64,879 for it in the last year, according to analysis by Wholesale UK, using eBay’s own market research tool, Terapeak.
And it seems it is not uncommon for this particular coin to be offered online for huge sums of money. One of the coins was up for sale for a speculative price of £81,000, another was on offer for £15,000, and one for £10,000.
No claim was made in the description that these particular items were unique or even especially rare, other than the fact that they were one-off commemorative coins. Other sellers were offering the coin at far cheaper prices - in fact, we were able to purchase one on eBay for just £3.50 - although even that low price is £1.50 more than its actual value.
According to Chancery Collection, an online resource for British commemorative coins, around 8.4 million of these coins were minted, which means it is not that rare. The Royal Mint did release different metal versions of the £2 coin, in Silver Proof (mintage of 10,000), Silver Proof Piedfort (mintage of 5,000) and Gold Proof (mintage of 1,000).
But even one of the rarest Gold Proof coins can be purchased from online coin dealer Bullion By Post for £1,069, complete with its own commemorative box.
Meanwhile, a genuine one-off minting error can also massively drive up the value to collectors, but Bullion By Post has a warning for anyone seeking to buy one of the 1807 coins.
It says: “Stories were circulated in the press - and are still online - that a few of the £2 Abolition coins had been minted incorrectly. These ill-informed news items were based on some coins having the edge of the coin inscription ‘upside down’ when the obverse side was visible.
"The Royal Mint quickly pointed out that the story of a minting error with writing upside down was incorrect. The truth was that, edge inscriptions can be struck either way, because of the minting process coins are regularly minted both ways up. These ‘valuable mint error’ coins were no such thing; they are not rare coins, and are worth only their face value £2.”
A spokesperson for the Royal Mint - who confirmed Bullion By Post’s comment - said: “We would suggest to anyone looking to purchase coins on the secondary market read our guide to getting a fair price for a coin.”
