Can anyone explain this please? Coins on Ebay

swingaloo

I was in a shop this morning when someone went into raptures when they were given a £2 coin in their change which had 1807 on it and a chain. It represents the abolition of slavery. They said they are rare and they would keep it as it was worth a fortune. When I got home I looked in our change pot and it seems we have one (Not that rare then) just sitting there amongst all the bits of change

Most seem to have sold for £20-£30 but one has sold today for £850. They seem to be listed for anything between 3.99 and £2000 and in almost all cases are used. The average sold price seems to be about £25-£30  so why?

Some say they are 'with errors' although in the descriptions they never say what the error is.

I'm not over exited as I think if it says £2 it is worth £2 but can anyone explain why they are listed and selling at silly prices.

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km1500

the one that sold for 850 pounds may have been worth that if it had an error on it

as for the rest it's maybe just be a subset of the problem that you sometimes see things on eBay for vastly inflated prices and you wonder why they are put on.

there are several reasons why people do this

soolin

I belong to some coin collecting groups and there are a lot of people, both buyers and sellers that believe the hype some of the popular newspapers put out about these rare coins being worth a fortune. 

The main coin selling company that I’m aware of sells these for around £3.50 and that of course reflects them having taken a profit from difference between what they buy for and what they sell for 

https://britanniacoincompany.com/buy-coins/circulated/2007-abolition/

i would not consider a coin with a Mintage: 8,445,000 to be rare. 

It is believed, but no proof that it is anything other than a rumour that eBay is used a lot for money laundering, and that accounts for some of the daft high prices on common coins and also beanie babies.

swingaloo

Wow, money laundering, whatever next.

Thought it was strange as many that are listed with an error have no mention of the error when you read the description.

Even worse there are the £2 coins which had silly starting prices and have sold for £1.79 and similar. Take away the Ebay fees and the seller would have been better chucking them in the bin.

FFHillbilly

I was just about to comment saying money laundering. It's very hard to disprove so they can get away with it

AstonSmith

There is a version of the abolition of slavery coin that came from a limited edition collector's set. You can tell the difference by the initials "DG" to the right of the 7, and the texture is smooth instead of rough/bumpy.

That's probably where the idea that this coin is rare and worth a fortune came from.

I guess it's possible that some of the sold high value listings are for this version of the coin?