People urged to look out for rare £2 coin that could be hundreds

People on the hunt for valuable coins should keep their eyes peeled for a particular £2 piece from 2011 that could fetch hundreds of pounds among collectors. This coin, known to have sold for as much as £270 and sometimes listed online for over £1,000, bears the image of Tosha the Cat, the fourth official Commonwealth Youth Games Mascot.

It was released by Pobjoy Mint for the Isle of Man Treasury and shot to fame in 2018 when it was dubbed the "coin of the year" by enthusiasts. But what's behind the allure of this specific £2 coin?

The experts at Change Checker shed some light: "Whilst rarity is normally a large factor in how collectable a coin is, mintage figures for British Isles coins are notoriously hard to track down and this coin is no exception. No one actually knows the true mintage figure, so it can't be said how rare the coin is, although we do know that British Isles coins typically have lower mintages than UK coins due to the smaller population."

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They added, "One thing we do know for certain is that the Isle of Man Tosha Cat £2 is definitely sought-after amongst collectors. Although the Tosha Cat £2 was issued in 2011, it wasn't until it was posted on Facebook coin groups in 2018 that the price started skyrocketing on the secondary market."

"In fact, in 2018 this coin became 'Coin of the Year' on Facebook coin groups, and this is where it really found its success. Following the Facebook hype surrounding the Tosha £2, eBay bidding wars began. At a time when the Kew Gardens was selling for around £80 on eBay, this coin was regularly selling for double that."

Listings on eBay continue to regularly exceed £100 and even go up to thousands of pounds for this Isle of Man coin. In a recent video posted to TikTok, expert the Coin Collector UK revealed the coin to be worth around £270.