RobJ

Thanks for the information Scott. I will keep an eye open and be sure to check the lettering.

I believe that after the 1989 'Claim of Rights' £2 Coin that the 2002 Commonwealth Games Issues have the lowest mintage of all £2 Commemorative Coins. Northen Ireland has the lowest of the four with just 485,500 minted. Oddly enough the Scottish Design had the highest mintage out of the four with 771,750, which is still a very small mintage compared the Commemoratives from other years!

I do agree that it is reminiscent of a High Jumper doing the Fosbury Flop. But I believe that it is a Gymnast on the Asymmetric Bar, designed by a young girl. I'm starting to rather like it if I'm honest, I think that it is very sweet.

If I were to go to a Coin Shop or look on a Dealer's Website and was presented with both of those coins to purchase I would definitely purchase 'Yours.' I think that it has a much more attractive even tone, where as 'His' seems to be somewhat 'Streaky.' There seems to be little difference with the actual strike, with 'His' being stronger around the face, however I do agree that 'Yours' does seem to be of a higher over all Grade. As to which is actually better? That is hard to say as I do think that you should purchase the Coin that appeals to you personally. I'm not sure if that is of any help to you or not Declan, but that is just from my own personal perspective.

It looks as though you have been bitten by the bug as well Ski. Welcome to the club! lol

Well done Cartwheel. You did well managing to obtain all of the Commonwealth Games £2 Issues. They are were, and still are, very hard to find! In fact the first time that I saw one 'In Hand' was recently when I purchased a set of all four of them. lol

Not a problem at all 1949, I'm glad that you found it useful.

I'd like to wish everyone a Very Happy, Very Merry (Hic) and Very Peaceful Christmas.

I couldn't agree with more you £400. After all any coins that you find and do decide to keep cost nothing more than face value, so you are never out of pocket. Plus, if it is a better example than you already have, then you can just swap them over and you have lost nothing.

I totally agree with you Cartwheel. I originally started to collect coins in the 1980's after seeing the first Commemorative £2 coin, and have continued to check my change ever since.

Hi Cartwheel, Welcome to the Forum.

It certainly sounds like it £400. Boxing 50p. Did it by any chance go with your Brunel £2 Coin to purchase your Ham and Mustard Roll? lol

That is very true 1949. However according to this artice from the BBC, they may be more common than first thought. "The Royal Mint said that 87 million of the 29 special 50p coins would come into circulation over 2010 and 2011." Which means that there could be 3 Million of each Design released into circulation. Although, we do have to take into account that people may pull them out of circulation as and when they see them. And we can't forget the inevitable surge of them on E-Bay, so who knows? lol

Thanks 1949. I do often find that when two Commemorative £2 Coins are released in the same year that one is harder to obtain than the other. Unless that has just been my luck? lol

Sadly, as you correctly point out, the A=1, B=2, C=3, etc, Cipher is the flaw in this system. As it is possibly the most common, and perhaps well known, of all systems I would think. I have experimented using the same basic concept but changing the Cipher. To be honest the results were better as it would be much harder for anyone to figure out, but the complexity of actually creating the Password in the first place was at least doubled. I like the simplicity of it, as it is so easy to encode and decode, but that sadly is also its 'Achilles Heel.' lol I do like that idea of adding a non Alpha-Numeric Character in the way that you suggested, I will sit and have a play with that idea. In fact I do something similar in that I exchange the Vowels themselves for them. This does of course add an element of randomisation to the overall system but has the downside of a simple transpositon which would show a pattern if looked at closely enough. I sat with a pen and paper last night and devised a couple of new ideas for a basic yet secure way to create strong Passwords, but I will have to play with them a little longer to see how they develop. If I am honest, I do only use that system for Forums and various other Websites. I have a modified system for E-Mail, etc. So if it were to be 'Cracked' then all I would lose is a few Forum accounts, which is no great loss to me. They way that I think about it is that no 'Serious Hacker' would waste their time or effort in trying to 'Crack' a Forum Password as there would simply be no challenge in it for them. So as long as my Passwords are strong enough to keep the 'Average Joe' on their toes, then I do not worry at all.

Very true indeed. I certainly would not be put off from purchasing a set Peckris. It would really depend on the overall quality of the Coins in that set, and of course the price as well. If I did see a set that contained nice Coins and the price was right for me then I would definitely purchase it. In fact I was offered a Elizabeth II 1953 set in UNC and a George VI 1937 set with the Copper in UNC and the Silver in gEF today. I will wait until after Christmas before I pop over and have a look, but depending on the Coins and the price I may very well purchase them for my collection.

It has been quite some time since I have seen one of those £400. In fact when they first came into Circulation, I only ever saw a few of those. Where as I saw a lot more Brunel 'Achievements' £2 Coins.

Well Done Boomstick. I have only seen one Burns £2 Coin to date. I think perhaps that they may end up being scacer in change than the Darwin £2 Coin?

That ended up with a winning bid of £10.49 + £2.49 P+P. That is quite shocking really. Especially if you consider that you could have bought one from the Royal Mint direct for £7.99 +£2.95 P+P!

Thanks Peckris. I thought that like my Decimal Collection to build a Pre Decimal Collection in a similar way would again be a good way to show a representative collection of coins from the different Monarchs. I think that as a whole the most expensive Coins to collect will be the Florin, Half Crown and Crown for each issue. As you said for the 1954 issue, for example, it will cost a fair bit, but it makes sense to me to purchase in those Grades as if I do ever sell my collection hopefully the initial outlay will turn into a nice investment. That is a good idea about the 1967 set. I think I will purchase a 1961 Penny as well, as that is the next Elizabeth II Penny after 1953 Issue, excluding the extremely rare 1954 Penny. Thanks for the advice on the George V Second Issue of Debased Silver and the Victorian 1887 Issues. That makes very good sense to me. I have already started to purchase some of the Coins for my collection. 1893, 1911 and 1926 ME Shillings, 1895 and 1902 Farthings, Half Pennies and and other 'Copper' from the various George V Issues all of them in EF. One of the chaps that I usually Purchase my coins from said that he will try to find the George VI and Elizabeth II Issues that I would like for my collection, so all in all I think that I'm making a good start. As I said, I am in no rush at all to build my collection, I personally think that half of the fun of collecting is finding the Coins that you would like. I'm sure that if I looked online or contacted one of the larger Dealers then they could find the entire collection that I would like to build, but where is the fun in that? lol

Well done Scott. I managed to obtain another Darwin £2 Coin and a DNA £2 Coin in my change yesterday. They both looked as if they had been buried and dug up again. lol The DNA £2 Coin I can sort of see how it would be so dirty as it would have circulated for quite some time, but I have no idea at all about the Darwin £2 Coin. lol

That is a very interesting way to create a secure password. Thanks for sharing it Peckris. Some years ago I used to work as Second Level Technical Support for a large ISP. It never ceased to amaze me when dealing with the Public, and some Co-Workers for that matter, how simple and basic their Passwords were. For example 'Cat' 'Pizza' or '12345' I did always encourage people to create a stronger password using letters and numbers as it was much safer than a simple word or number sequence. I did develop my own method to create secure Passwords. It is actually quite similar to the one that Peckris devised and explained above in the way that it works. Simply write down the letters of the Alphabet from A-Z. Then write the numbers from 1-26 beside each letter. A=1, B=2, C=3 etc. Then choose a word to encode, this can be a name, a place, a TV show or whatever you want it to be as long as you can remember it. For this example I will use PREDECIMAL Then count the letters of the word to see if they add up to an Odd or Even number. In this example the word has 10 letters so it is an Even number. Then to create your Password, because the word we have chosen is an even number, write each Odd letter as its letter and each Even letter as its relating number. (If your word is Odd then simply write each Odd letter as its related number and each Even letter as its letter. So PREDECIMAL would be P=Odd R=Even E=Odd D=Even E=Odd C=Even I=Odd M=Even A=Odd L=Even The Pasword for PREDECIMAL would be : p18e4e3i13a12 You can even make the first and last letters capital letters to make it harder to 'Crack.' The Password would then be : P18e4e3i13A12 It does sound quite a long winded way to create a Password, but if you try it a few times you will see how it works and be able to pick it up and understand it easily. I have found this to be a simple method to create a secure Password because as long as you can remember the word that you have chosen it is very easy to encode it or re-encode it if you forget the Password as you can simply run through the letters of the Alphabet and their related numbers in your head. I do use this method myself to create Passwords and I have never personally had any problems with it. I do only use this type of Password for Forums and other such Websites. For Websites which are more sensitive I developed a similar method which also incoporates Prime Numbers and an adapted Fibonacci Sequence.

I managed to obtain both the Gymnastics and a Badminton 50p Designs in my change today. I am not sure how many of each of the 29 Designs have been issued but they are certainly starting to appear more frequently.

I think that is perhaps a case of you knowing what you like and liking what you know Red. I was born just after Decimalization but I feel the same way about the small 5p, 10p and 50p Issues. Horrible little things that they are. lol I would much rather have the larger versions any day.

I think that the way that the way that my Collection is starting to develop I will collect in both types. For example, with Decimal I have a set of the first Decimal Issues from 1968 (Plus a 1969 50p) a set from 1982 when the wording changed from 'New' to the value. Then I have the sets issued in 1982, 1985 and 1998 where the Obverse image changed. I do think that shows and offers a good representation of Decimal coinage, however, it simply does not interest me personally to collect each and every set issued for each and every year. Then I am also collecting £2 and 50p Commemorative Issues both ftom change and in BU along side them. I have been thinking long and hard and I'm intending to do similar with Pre Decimal Coinage as well, without the countless minor variations. Elizabeth II for me would be a set of the First Issue in 1953 and then the Second Issue in 1954. And one of each of the Crowns that were issued. For George VI, a 1937 set, a 1947 set of Cupro Nickel coins and then a set of 1949 When 'IND IMP' was removed. Plus the Crowns. George V is more complex as there were four Issues in his Reign, but I think that I will go for a set of 1911, 1920 Debased Silver, 1926 ME and a set of 1927/28. Again Plus the Crowns. Edward Vii is quite straight forward for me as there would only be 1902 set plus the Crown. Victoria, like George VI is quite complex with the various issues so I think that I will concentrate on the earlier Monarchs first but still purchase the coins that I would like as and when I encounter them. On the other hand I'm starting to build a nice Date Run Farthing Collection, and I think that I will follow suit with Pennies and maybe even Half Pennies, as I am really starting to like Copper Coins. I think that for me personally they would be from Edward VII to Elizabeth II, as if I'm honest, Victorian Copper simply does not excite me, except for the Young Head, which is by far my favourite design of any Monarch and one day I would really like a Young Head Farthing Date Run Collection. With Elizabeth II and George VI I only really would like to collect UNC examples and for George V and Edward VII, I am aiming at EF examples. There are of course some exceptions of the harder dates and coins ( EG, 1949 Threepence, 1926 ME Penny and Half Crown, Wreath Crown, etc, etc.) so they would be in whichever Grade that I could not only afford but also justify as well. I do know that I have a lot of work cut out for me and I'm under no illusion at all that it will take a long time and indeed money to build such a collection, but as it stands, that is the Collection that I would like to build. I am in no rush and I intend to enjoy each and every moment and each and every coin as if it were the first. After that, who knows! lol