Rare £1 coin error could be worth £2,500 - how to spot it

An expert has urged people to check their wallets and piggy banks at home for a coin that could be worth as much as £2,500

People are being urged to check their wallets and piggy banks at home for a coin that could be worth as much as £2,500.

£1 coins with a certain error on them could sell for thousands, an expert has advised.

To spot the valuable coin, you need to look for a £1 coin that has two different dates on it. One date will be easy to find - appearing on the same side as the monarch’s head.

The other date will be etched into the rim of the other side of the coin in very small print. If these two dates are different, your coin could be worth putting up for auction.

More specifically the dates you want to be looking out for are 2016 and 2017.

One coin expert, known online as the Coin Collector UK, took to social media platform TikTok to explain exactly what to look for.

He said: “£2,500 if you manage to find this error on your 12 sided £1 coin.

“There are a few errors that can be found on your £1 coins. The main ones you want to be looking for is the dual dated £1 coin.”

He demonstrated what to look for using a normal £1 coin from 2016.

“So you can see, when we flip this over on the obverse side this is a 2016 version of the £1 coin,” he said.

“However some were made with the micro-lettering on the side with the date 2017. It is an extremely rare error. We only know of one that’s actually being sold to a buyer in Spain, and this sold for £2,500.”

He continued: “Here's a close-up of exactly all you want to be looking out for. You can see here the date 2017 around the edge in micro-lettering on every side.”

The expert advised using a microscope to check for the error.

“If you are going to look out for this error in your change then you'll probably need a microscope because the micro-lettering on the edges is extremely fine and very very hard to see,” he added.

“Definitely worth checking if you have the 2016 dated coin on the Queen's head side, for the micro-lettering on the reverse side for the date 2017.”