Two Pounds 2020 Agatha Christie, Coin from United Kingdom - detailed information

The bi-metallic £2 coin is the largest circulating coin denomination of the Pound Sterling. It was introduced in 1998 (earlier two pound coins were made of Nickel brass, were intended as commemorative, and did not circulate much). Being bi-metallic means that the coin comprises two separate components of differing alloys; the outer ring of the coins is made of Nickel-Brass (76% copper, 4% nickel, 20% zinc) and the inner circle is CuproNickel (75% copper, 25% nickel).

The Royal Mint maintains a "definitive" style of the £2 issued annually, as well as a large variety of one-year circulating commemorative types.

In 2017, the mint also started issuing some Non-Circulating Legal Tender (NCLT) £2 coins for collectors. These are included in the annual mint sets, but are not released into general circulation. Their themes celebrate important anniversaries or people, as well as iconic aspects of British culture and history.

This £2 coin celebrates the 100th Anniversary of Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries.

As the author of 66 detective novels and 150 short stories, it’s no wonder Dame Agatha Christie is known as the Queen of Crime. Born in 1890, in Torquay, Devon, her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published in 1920 and, with her vision and ingenuity, she went on to define the murder mystery genre.

Designer David Lawrence says:
“I pursued several possible threads to this design: each based around various problem-solving metaphors. I started with some ideas based on a board game - the pieces bearing the faces of various characters in a story. I then worked on some designs using the concept of a maze - the solution to the problem lying at its centre. But the final idea was the one which was possibly the simplest to understand and execute and which reflected the universal truth of every story: at the heart of every Agatha Christie Mystery there is a missing component - a missing piece to the puzzle - which, when finally and ingeniously deduced, completes the picture and brings resolution.”

These £2 coins were struck in various collector formats but none were issued into general circulation.