Two pound coin with outer ring reversed.

[jwonnacott]

Greetings from a new boy.

I'm not a coin buff by any means, although I used to "check my change" pre decimalisation, but for my 60th birthday my dear wife gave me 60 £2 coins and I decided to look through for anything unusual.

The only oddity I found was a 1999 coin (the standard reverse) which appears to have the outer ring on back to front, i.e. the side with the Queen's head has "TWO POUNDS" and "1999" on the outer ring and the other side has "ELIZABETH II DEI GRA etc.".

I'd always assumed the two metals were assemled before the coin was struck - but appasrently not.

Is this unusual, or a forgery?

Thanks for reading,

James.

[Nordle11]

Welcome to the forum James. If I remember correctly, it can be removed and put back in by freezing the coin, due to the different contraction rates of the two metals, among other methods. 

Do you have any pictures?

[jwonnacott]

Hmm, just took a photo with the phone but it says it is to big to upload :-(

[Nordle11]

Yeah it never lets me post directly from my phone either. You'll have to crop it down on a computer or something James and try from there. 

When the £2 coins are struck, they're done from one die on both the center and the outer rim which causes them to join. I'm pretty sure anything that is different from the norm has been done by someone after its struck.