2001 Two Pounds

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Two different £2 coins were issued in 2001 – A commemorative coin to mark the centenary since Marconi’s successful transatlantic wireless transmission and one with the standard ages of man reverse.

Commemorative £2 Coin, Type 9: (info on coin type numbers here)

Obverse Type (bust design by Ian Rank-Broadley):

2pounds1998-obv

Reverse Type (design by Robert Evans):

2pounds2001marcrev

Edge: WIRELESS BRIDGES THE ATLANTIC    MARCONI 1901.

Mintage for Circulation: 4,558,000.

Collectability/Scarcity: 1 (for scale details see here)

The story behind the design:

The obverse has the portrait of the Queen by Ian Rank-Broadley. The reverse is by Robert Evans and represents radio waves with a spark of electricity between the zeros of the date. It was previously thought to be impossible to transmit radio waves over very long distances. Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi claimed to have achieved the impossible by broadcasting the Morse code letter ‘S’ from Cornwall to Newfoundland in 1901. Further tests in 1902 independently proved that radio waves could be transmitted across the Atlantic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guglielmo_Marconi#Transatlantic_transmissions

The Standard 2001 Coin:

Obverse Type (bust design by Ian Rank-Broadley):

2pounds1998-obv

Reverse Type (design by Bruce Rushin):

2poundsStandardrev

Edge: STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS.

Mintage for Circulation: 34,984,750.

Collectability/Scarcity: 1 (for scale details see here).

The story behind the design:

The obverse portrait of the Queen by Ian Rank-Broadley has been used on all UK coinage from 1998 to 2015 and is the fourth portrait of the Queen used on coinage. At the time of writing, this portrait is due to be replaced by a new one, to be unveiled in 2015.

The reverse design shows the ages of man. Represented are the Iron Age, the Industrial Revolution, the Electronic Age and the Internet Age. The edge quote ‘STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS’ is from a letter by Sir Isaac Newton from 1676 in which he wrote: ‘If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’, which may have been a modest nod to other scientists, but some say that it may have been poking fun at the stature of the recipient of the letter, Robert Hooke. The expression ‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’ pre-dates Newton by many centuries:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants

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