UK £1 & £2 Trial Coins

Hi - I have been trying to find entries on Numista for the UK 1994 £2 and 2015 £1 Trial coins but can't find them. I know they are not officially released currency and are only coins issued for trial purposes.

I thought they might be in Tokens or Exonumia somewhere but can't find them there. Maybe they have not been uploaded to Numista yet?

So are they on here but my limited searching skills are not good enough, or are they not listed yet?

Cheers Mike

Could not find the page for the £2, so I will upload my pictures later

to a new page, and will take my coin out of the holder.

Now I have very quickly created the page
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces109840.html
and will add other information later.

These need to be listed in the 'Pattern Coins' section of the U.K. listing.

Aidan.

Unfortunately, until they are listed in Krause or Spink they will have to be listed under Tokens or Exonumia.

Quote: "radrick007"​Unfortunately, until they are listed in Krause or Spink they will have to be listed under Tokens or Exonumia.

​
I don't agree with listing them under those.

Aidan.

Quote: "radrick007"​Unfortunately, until they are listed in Krause or Spink they will have to be listed under Tokens or Exonumia.

​But this is not Numista official policy (rules are pretty loose). You do not have to omit them from catalogue, if you know they are official and Krause or Spink just forgotten them.

Wow . . You guys don't muck about. Thanks for putting up the £2 Trial 1994 coin ZacUK.

Cheers Mike

I do know they are official, as they are Royal Mint issued (see reverse) and
I have also have it in a Mint set somewhere, which shows the different stages of
making a bimetal coin. Will add details and other images to the page tonight.
These are old pictures of mine; will make others later ...


EDIT: I have now updated the page.

Quote: "Jarcek"​

Quote: "radrick007"​Unfortunately, until they are listed in Krause or Spink they will have to be listed under Tokens or Exonumia.

​​But this is not Numista official policy (rules are pretty loose). You do not have to omit them from catalogue, if you know they are official and Krause or Spink just forgotten them.

​I realise that this is not official Numista policy, I was merely expressing my opinion as one of the current co-referees for the UK catalogue.

However, I have my doubts about the piece that ZacUK has added, since it seems to have been struck in 1998, one year after the Maklouf portrait bi-metallic £2 entered circulation.

So then maybe it is a copy or restrike of a trial pattern; does that make it worthy of entering the main UK catalogue - again, not in my opinion.

I am quite sure that the Royal Mint makes a large number of patterns, trials, models and the like each year so because they are made by the RM, one could argue that they are "official".

But just because a piece has been "officially" made by the Royal Mint, does that mean it should be featured in the main UK catalogue? The answer has to be, "Not necessarily".

There is obviously a difference of opinion here and perhaps we should await the appointment of the new "Guidelines admins" to make a judgement?

EDIT: I have also been reading up about the latest 12-sided bi-metallic £1 trial pieces. It seems that they were issued by the Royal Mint to various organisations (institutions for the blind, groups within the coin-operated machinery industry, etc.) for trialling and assessment purposes. However, it is thought that these pieces remain the property of the British Government and the re-sale of these pieces is actually illegal so it seems unlikely that any Numista member will (legally) have any in their collection. This would tend to lend weight to the argument that they do not belong in the catalogue at all, or at least not in the main UK catalogue.

I was unaware of somehow difficult UK situation regarding patterns and just thought it was ommited because Krause forgotten it.

After this explanation, it seems reasonable, that there are doubts about their status. What I wanted to imply, is that we do not have to necessarily to follow Krause or any other catalogue if they are wrong.

I have now also got the 2015 Royal Mint Trial £1 coin ...

and will amend details this page below when it arrives.
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces110405.html

I managed to pick one up on ebay.co.uk too Zak ... You were probably bidding against me lol.

I tried to win about 6 different ones but kept getting overbid at the death even though I was using the Mybidder sniping app.

Kept trying though and was eventually successful ... :)

Cheers Mike

Ah, I see !!

EDIT: May 3rd - received today, and it is very nice ...

then I put it with the proper version on the right, which I happened to get in change today.

Oh dear - with the 2015 £1 coin there was the 1994 £2 as stated above;
and just now I have seen another 1994 trial coin. I did not know it existed ...

where the larger 50 pence was replaced with that smaller version.
Same details as old coin, just smaller. I want one!

Wow .. Great find Zak .. I didn't know about that one either. The actual change from the large to the small 50p occurred in 1997. I wonder how many of these 1994 small 50p trial coins exist?

I saw the one you pictured on Ebay .. starting bid £1250 ... Somehow think that won't ever get into my collection lol.

Cheers Mike