Two Pound Coin Charles Dickens

In this post we look at the two pound coin from 2012 commemorating the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens.

This coin is unusual in that it features a profile portrait of Dickens' head made up from the names of his books on the reverse. This rather interesting image was designed by Matthew Dent (who also designed the new post 2008 reverses of the 1p - £1 coins and the commemorative WWF 50p coin reverse).

2012 Charles Dickens £2 Reverse

The obverse features the Ian Rank-Broadley portrait of Her Majesty and the edge inscription reads "Something will turn up" - a quotation from the character Mr Micawber in David Copperfield.

This is not a particularly rare coin (despite what you might read on some eBay listings) with over 8 million being minted and I have come across a few in my change (of which the above is one). For specifications visit the royal mint's entry HERE. You will appreciate that this coin is very much a circulated example (I posted an article a few years ago about an almost uncirculated example I found) but to me sometimes this is actually more satisfying to have in your collection to a BU example that you dare not take out its packaging and has no history to it. Coins like these still have excellent levels of detail but carry with them an unknown history and are very satisfying to spot in circulation. Of course they are not worth as much to sell but that's not really the point of collecting is it!