Newly-discovered rare Shakespeare £2 error coin sells for impressive £230 on eBay
23 August 2020, 17:41 | Updated: 23 August 2020, 17:44
The rare coin has been popping up all over online auction sites.
A rare Shakespeare coin is being flogged by a number of coin collectors on eBay, cashing them up to £230 on the site.
There are three different £2 coins called Tragedies, Comedies and Histories, and were issued back in 2016 by the Royal Mint.
They were released to honour 400 years since the famous British playwright passed away.
The coin with the supposed error on it is the Tragedies £2, which features a skull and rose motif in a nod to William Shakespeare's works on tragic love affairs.
The real coin should have "WHAT A PIECE OF WORK IS MAN" inscribed on the side of the coin, which is a line from Hamlet, but coin collectors have noticed some seem to have the wrong inscription.
However, the wrong coin reads "FOR KING AND COUNTRY", which is the phrase that's supposed to be on the Royal Mint's First World War £2 issued in 2016 to commemorate the role of the army in WWI.
These 2p error coins circulating could be worth a lot of money
The Sun revealed this particular issue with the coin after speaking to coin expert Colin Bellamy from the Coin Hunter website.
It looks like it wasn't a widely known error coin, as The Royal Mint commented: "We are investigating the alleged error.”
In total, 4,615,000 of the Tragedies coins have gone into circulation so there's a strong chance you may may find one in your spare change.
The most an error version of the Tragedies £2 has gone for so recently on eBay is £230, plus £1.83 postage, after receiving 30 bids on August 13.
Earlier this week, one of the same coins sold for £98.28 after a fierce 12-bid war, and another went for £51 the day after, with 14 bids on it.
It seems to be a new discovery that this is a rare error coin so it's hard to estimate exactly how much it's worth.
