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Three different £2 coins were issued in 2005. Two commemorative coins, one to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII and another to mark the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder plot. And the standard coin with the ages of man reverse.
Commemorative £2 Coin, Type 13: (info on coin type numbers here)
Obverse Type (bust design by Ian Rank-Broadley):
Reverse Type (design by Peter Forster):
Edge: REMEMBER REMEMBER THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER*.
Mintage for Circulation: 5,140,500.
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 Peter Forster and shows swords, maces and crozier with stars on the rim, to the left and right. It was November the 5th 1605 when Guy Fawkes and a group of other Catholics attempted to blow up the houses of parliament along with protestant King James I. They failed and Guy was captured. The original bonfire celebration was a celebration that King James had survived:
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/gunpowder_plot_of_1605.htm
*Due to the way these coins are made, often the tails of the R’s on the edge are missing or weak and in extreme cases it can read ‘PEMEMBEP PEMEMBEP THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBEP’. The fault seems common, but has led in the past to the coins being sold for more than those with the intact edge, proper wording.
Commemorative £2 Coin, Type 14: (info on coin type numbers here)
Obverse Type (bust design by Ian Rank-Broadley):
Reverse Type (design by Robert Elderton):
Edge: IN VICTORY: MAGNANIMITY, IN PEACE: GOODWILL.
Mintage for Circulation: 10,191,000.
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 Elderton and shows St Pauls Cathedral in London during the blitz, with searchlights shining into the sky. World War II ended in Europe with the unconditional surrender of Germany on the 8th May 1945. It had been the deadliest human conflict of all time and its influence and aftermath stretched well past it’s 60th anniversary in 2005, right up to the present day:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II
The Standard Coin for 2005:
Obverse Type (bust design by Ian Rank-Broadley):
Reverse Type (design by Bruce Rushin):
Edge: STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS.
Mintage for Circulation: 3,837,250.
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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