Mark Nasoni

I've taken a few; I've learned how hard it is to take photos of coins (with a cheap camera) but hopefully these help to see the differences. Because you really need the highest resolution ones to see the differences best I've put the photos up on Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/clarknasoni/s...57611050777401/ as you can see the high resolution ones there. I'm attaching some reduced resolution ones here as well (under the 150K limit). There are a few photos of the two coins side by side showing the obverse and reverse sides. I've kept the coin that seems to be 'standard' on the left. I also took a two photos of the edge of the two coins. The wording on both is the same but I did notice the character spacing is not. For both photos I lined up the ' A ' in '... A MAN AND ...' on both coins; the photos show how the difference in spacing slowly offsets the two. It does seem the obverse sides are just the two different designs used on £2 coins recently and for some reason the 'odd' coin here is just using the older design (as mint_mark pointed out). But the differences on the reverse side are interesting. The difference in the background between the two (rough on one and smooth on the other) is interesting. I think you can see this best in the 'reverse side by side 2' photo. I also noticed (only after looking at the photos) the one coin (the 'odd' one) has a 'DG' mark to the right bottom of the '7' in '1807'. This is best seen in the 'reverse side by side 3' photo. Any idea what that mark indicates or is representing? If anyone has suggestions on how to take better photos of coins, I'd like to hear. Thanks for any info you may have here. Mark

Apologies if this is answered or covered elsewhere but I've got two versions of the 2007 £2 coin commemorating the abolition of the slave trade and can't find any mention of the fact there are two versions on sites. There are a number of differences I've noted: - On one the ring around the portrait reads "ELIZABETH II D G REG FID DEF" and has "TWO POUNDS" below it; on the other version the rind around the portrait reads "ELIZABETH II DEI GRA REG FID DEF" and omits the two pound lettering - The background on the reverse behind the '1807' design is smooth on one coin and rough on the other - The orientation of the letter on the rim of the coins differ; on one the lettering is right side up when the portrait side is facing upwards; on the other the lettering is upside down when the portrait side is facing upwards. Anyone have information on why there are two versions? Or can you point me to information? Thanks, Mark Nasoni

Thanks for the response. Too bad they don't exist. I think they'd be much better for my son (age 5) as he could see what he still needed to find and would enjoy fitting them into the slot. I'll just have to get the blank sheets and label them for each year and type. Is there a good resource which lists the variations of British coins minted each year? Some years there are variations (for example the pound coin has had bridges the last few years but previously had variations with the symbol of a different country within the UK on the reverse side). Ideally I'd want a list that looked something like this: 1998: - Pound coin with Welsh symbol - Pound coin with Scottish symbol - etc 1999: - etc Also British coins don't seem to have a mint marking like US coins. I suppose that's because they're all minted at a single location? Suppose I should be reading the FAQ first. The books for Euros look good and I'll be getting some of those.

We've just moved to Britain (from the US) and I wanted to get my son interested in collecting coins while here. I've been, unsucessfully, looking for coin albums for British and Euro coins to buy for us to use. I'm looking for the sort of coin album that already has the slots labelled for each year and denomination coin rather than the sort that is just an open sheet where you label the coins you put in (I've found plenty of those). I'm thinking it'll be more fun for my son to put a coin in the slot it's meant for and see what he still needs to look for. I had albums like this in the US when I was young and collected coins. The only albums I've found for British coins are by Whitman and are for older, predecimal, coins which we'd never find in general circulation. Anyone know where I could find albums like this? Thanks in advance Mark Nasoni