Rare 2p coin sells for £485

A rare ‘silver’ two pence coin struck in error by the Royal Mint has sold for £485 – 24,250 times its face value.

The seller, from Granton, Edinburgh, posted the silver-coloured coin on online marketplace Gumtree with the lofty asking price.

It was sold this morning (January 3) to a coin collector in Fife.

The coin was minted in error in 2015 after being accidentally struck onto the nickel-plated steel base of a 10p instead of the copper-plated steel used for 2p coins.

Such mistakes at The Royal Mint – which can manufacture up to four million pennies a day – result in ‘error coins’ known as ‘mules’.

These mules are extremely rare, as most are spotted by the Royal Mint’s strict quality controls and never released into general circulation.

That makes them valuable to collectors who are willing to pay way above the coin’s face value to add them to their collections.

The seller said he bought the coin from a friend in Thames Ditton, Surrey in 2018.

Posting next to a picture of the curious coin, listed as ‘Silver 2 pence coin minted in error’, he states: “Extremely rare coin which I bought three years ago.

“The price is set and will not become an auction as it’s being sold through necessity.”

A similar coin sold for £1,350 at auction back in 2016, nearly 70,000 times more than the actual value of the coin.