1. Rare 2 Euro Coins 2001
2. Rare 2 Euro Coins 2002
3. Rare 2 Euro Coins 2001 Dollar

The eight Euro Coin denominations in circulation are: 1 cent, 2 cent, 5 cent - copper coloured; 10 cent,20 cent, 50 cent - brass coloured; 1 Euro - silver centre surrounded by a gold ring; 2 Euro - gold centre surrounded by a silver ring. One side of the Euro coins remains the same regardless of the country it was minted in. At the end of the video you can see the coins much better. Sorry about the poor resolution. The only article explaining the mistake is unfortunately in Germa.

Last week we brought you the five steps to value a coin. This week we will get deeper in on e of the steps of that valuation process. Precisely we bring you some examples on how the existence of a variation or and error can make a regular coin into a extremely desired object by some collectors.

We have to pay more attention to the coins that go through our hands, we might be wasting a great opportunity and the coin we are using to pay for our coffee should end up in a coin sale for a prices 50 times its facial value.

Variants

We already told you this week that variants are small changes on the original design of a coin or on the material with which they are made of. This changes are, sometimes, almost imperceptible, so most of the people don’t even notice them. But for the eye of an expert collector they mean the difference between junk and a really good investment.

In the post dedicated to the Standard World Coin Catalog we talked about the assignment of a KM (unique id) for each type of coin. In that catalog variants are also classified, although instead of having a new KM, the variants are identified by adding a new letter or number to the original KM. I.e. in the case of the 2.5 Euro Portuguese coins, the letter is used to distinguish between the silver or gold minted version instead of the regular mint in copper-nickel.

Errors

There are collectors that do not value error coins at all and they actually try to get rid of them as soon as possible, truth is that the interest in coins with errors is increasing. It’s a very interesting type of collecting specially for those collecting current coins, since some of the coins for his collection can suddenly be found among the circulating coins. Making the art of coins collection a continuous activity.

There are a lot of errors that can be produced during the process of minting a coin, although, as we already said the ones that are more valued are those that do not affect the integrity of the coin. In these cases, the mintage of the coin has being properly completed. It is not a mint process fault (broken die, dirty, lack of material, etc.) but it is a design that contains unique details. Mostly this is due to human errors.

Here you have some of the most common errors during the minting process of the two coin Euro commemorative coins.

2 Euro Commemorative Coin 10 Anniversary Of The Economic Monetary Union - Big Stars.

It is a coin dedicated to the 10th Anniversary of the Economic Monetary Union by the Spanish mint FNMT during last 2009. There are no official data regarding the minting error as well as in the number of minted coins, estimated between 75.000 and 100.000

The minting error is in the coin with the big stars and it originated through the Pantograph, precisely when changing the scale from the epoxy model to the die. Basically the error consists in an expansion of the little star surrounding the coin, minting the coin in a scale of 1:1.27 approximately.

According to the operator in charge of the minting, the coin with big stars was created the firs day. The error was fixed lately and the mintage continued until the 8.000.000 final coins. The coins containing errors were mixed among the correct rolls. This is the reason why we don’t know the exact number of erroneous coins, which contributed to an increase on the market price.

Two Euro Coin From Germany, 2008 - Old Map

From 2007 and due to the incorporations of different countries to the Euro, the map on the obverse of the coins was changed, and the map with the countries of the European union before its expansion, with 15 countries changes to 25, representing all the European union members up to 2004. This way the new countries in the common coin will also be represented in the map.

But in the commemorative two Euro coins for the rotating presidency of the bundesrat: Free and hanseatic city of Hamburg, minted in 2008, the old map was used (smaller than the new design and containing frontiers) even though they should have used the new one already (pointed and without frontiers).

This error only appears on the coins minted in the mint of Sttutgard (identified by the letter F). It is estimated that after they took some of them of the market, from a total of 50.000 coins there might be around 25.000 coins circulating.

The 1 Cent Face Value Coin That Costs 6.600 Euro

As a very flashy case we bring you the case of this Italian coin of 1 Euro cent sold for more than 6.600 Euro. A revaluation that not even the noble metal minted coin get.

On the 9th of January of 2002, when the euro just had got to Europe, in the press this new showed up:

The Rome District’s attorney has open an investigation after the appearance of ‘fault cent euro coins’, and they might have been introduced voluntarily in the ‘Euro Starter Kits’ by a worker of the Italian National Coin Institute.
The defective coins are the same diameter of the two cents coin and they have the same drawing, but they have written a face value of one cent. A dozen of these coins have already been found, specially in the north of Italy.

Error:

An undetermined number of coins was taken away by the authorities, before they could circulate, however it is speculated that a few hundreds can still be part of some fortunates collections.

Six of these coins where bought by the Italian collection company Bolaffi, although they had problem with this investment, and the “Guardia di Finanza” confiscated them claiming that the coins are actually property of the Italian mint.

Only after 11 years of dispute, a court from Rome admitted the right of the company to posses and sell these coins. Finally when they went on auction their price raised up to 6.600 Euro.

Special Mints

If we did not where lucky with the coin in our hands and this coin is not a variant or has no error at all, we can’t still throw in the towel. It might still be a special edition and thanks to that it might have a higher value.

There are only 20.001 coins, price right now is approx 1500 €:

In some of the coin catalogs, i.e. in the Standard World Coin Catalog that we commented a few weeks ago, it is included information regarding the mint volume each year. In general the coin houses carry on big mints of the regular circulating coins, although there are some years that due to problems in manufacture, political decisions, economics or administrative make a lower mint that year. For the collectors focused in coins per year, this years mints are usually very valued.

Low mintage in 2002:

Low mintage in 2005 and 2006:

Low mintage in 2006:

This reduced mints are also frequent in the case of commemorative coins or special ones or in those countries where they are not the ones minting their circulating coins, like San Marino, Monaco, or Vatican City. In them, due to the low number of annual mints the coins don’t even get out to circulate but they are just bought as collection editions.

We recommend to read the next post:
Is my coin really a treasure?

Some weeks ago we were telling you here how the low numbers on the mint of the new 2 euro coins from Spain that commemorate the 50th birthday of the King Felipe and the one of the inclusion of Santiago de Compostela in the UNESCO World Heritage list made them to achieve high prices and might make them hard to obtain in the future.

This week we bring you a new curiosity, a list of some of the most expensive coins along with their similar low-cost version. With low-cost version we mean those that can be purchased at a much lower price just because they are from a different year or a different mint, keeping the same design as the expensive version.

WARNING! It is very important to take into account the details here, these coins are not the exact same coin, that’s why they don’t have the same value, small details will define the value of the coin. If you got questions about coins valuation you can ask our community here, in our forum for coin collectors.

2 Euro Coin from Finland 2006

The first coin we are going to talk about is the 2 Euro coin from Finland minted in 2006. This coin was minted with a partial error in the map that included the new map that will be used after 2007. 55.000 where minted and the value of the erroneous coin it’s about 90 euros. Here you have its details:

• Country: Finland
• Year: 2006
• Facial Value: 2 euros
• Mintage: 55.000
• Reason for a high price: Partial ERROR in the minted map.
• Price: ~91 Euros

Low-Cost Version:

• Difference: No error version.
  

Luckily for all of us the regular coin can be obtained at a much more lower price here:

2 Euro Coin from Greece 2006

The 2 Euro coin from Greece, depending on the year has very different prices. Specifically the coin from 2007 is very expensive, since it can reach up to around 80 euros. Just to mention other examples of this same coin, the cost of the one from 2004 is around 74 euros and the one from 2011 is around 50 euros. All this is due to the fact that the number of the coins minted during those years was much lower than the others. Here you have the details of the most expensive one:

• Country: Grece
• Year: 2007
• Facial Value: 2 euros
• Mintage: 25.000
• Reason for a high price: Low mintage in some years (2007 in this case)
• Price: ~77 Euros

Low-Cost Version:

• Difference: Mintage year.

Again there is a much cheaper version with the same design, we only need to change the mintage year to 2002. Here you have a few for those of you that are interested:

Rare 2 Euro Coins 2001

2 Euro Coin from Slovenia 2011

The 2 Euro standard circulation coin from Slovenia, has a similar situation than the one from Greece, now with the one from 2011, that might reach around 55 euros. This is due to the fact that this coins, in 2011, where only made in low quantities and only distributed in the form of sets, therefore the price is much higher. Here is the info of this coin:

• Country: Slovenia
• Year: 2011
• Facial Value: 2 euros
• Mintage: Not Available
• Reason for a high price: Low mintage in 2011 and some other years.
• Price: ~55 Euros

Low-Cost Version:

• Difference: Mintage year.

And here you have its low cost version with the same design, only changing the minting year to 2007. Take advantage and buy it now before the sellers run out of them!

2 Euro Coin from San Marino 2003

The coins from San Marino are famous because they are not precisely cheap, but their price might vary a lot depending on the year, since, as in the previous coin, some years this coin was only minted in low quantities and in sets. Specially the coin of 2003 is being sold around 90 Euros, while the ones from 2004 and 2006 are sold around 89 and 49 euros respectively.

• Country: San Marino
• Year: 2003
• Facial Value: 2 euros
• Mintage: 70.000
• Reason for a high price: Low mintage in 2003 and some other years (only through sets).
• Price: ~90 Euros

Low-Cost Version:

• Difference: Mintage year.

In this case it is not a very cheap coin compare to its face value, however if you compare it to the previous one instead you can get a San Marino coin for not a bad price. The only difference with the previous one is the year, since the design is the same. Here you have it:

2 Euro Coin from The Vatican 2006

Coins from the Vatican City have a similar problem than the previous ones, the price is never very cheap, but in a similar way we can save some euros if we select properly the year. Specially the version from 2006 is a coin that costs more than a 100 euros, and in the same way, the ones from the following years: 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, have a price of 100, 61, 70 and 54 euros respectively. This is the info of the most expensive one among them:

• Country: Vatican City
• Year: 2006
• Facial Value: 2 euros
• Mintage: 85.000 and 16.000 in Proof
• Reason for a high price: Low mintage in 2006 and some other years (only through sets).
• Price: ~90 Euros

Low-Cost Version:

• Difference: Mintage year.

However the coin from year 2013, even though it has the same design it can be purchased at a much lower price:

Rare 2 Euro Coins 2002

2 Euro Coin from France 2008

Usually the two euro coin from France is not a very pricy coin, however this standard circulating coin was only minted in the year 2008 in the form of coin sets, therefore leading to be highly valued, being sold around 36 euros. Here you have its details:

Rare 2 Euro Coins 2001 Dollar

• Country: France
• Year: 2008
• Facial Value: 2 euros
• Mintage: 60.000
• Reason for a high price: Low mintage in 2008 (only through sets).
• Price: ~36 Euros

Low-Cost Version:

• Difference: Mintage year.

Again, if we consider, for example, the version from 2001 we can obtain it at a much lower price:

Do you know any other coin in the same situation? Did you ever get any bargain like this? Leave your comment and help us discover it!