One father from Manchester was shocked to find a coin worth over £200 in his spare change from the local shop.

After noticing that the unique coin had an image of a cat on it, Ben Mason, 26, decided to do some more research and soon discovered just how much it was really worth.

He later shared his find in a Tiktok which showed the coin he now had in his possession was being listed for as high as £399.

The coin the father of four found was the 2011 Commonwealth Youth Games coin which featured an image of the Commonwealth Youth Games Mascot, Tosha the Cat and the official logo of the games.

Ben later listed his find on eBay where it was quickly snapped up for a whopping £236.74 - after fees, Ben managed to take home £206 overall.

He said: "I was over the moon when I found it - absolutely ecstatic,"

"It's been hard recently, not just for me but for everyone with the cost-of-living crisis.

"It helped massively with energy bills and food as I'm a father of four. I just couldn't believe that a coin could be worth so much."

Ben's tactic to sell his coin was to auction his coin for a lower price in the hope he would get some keen bidders rather than only set a higher "buy now" price.

He added: "As no one had one on for auction I thought I'd take the opportunity to put it on as an auction starting for £100 bidding.

"But I also had a buy now price for £350."

Within two days of his coin being listed, Ben received his first bid of £190, after that there wasn't much activity on the listing until the last hour - this is when said the "battled started".

Due to selling on eBay, Ben's overall takings was a little lower than what he sold the coin for.

He added: "That doesn't bother me - I technically swapped £2 for £206."

The Commonwealth Youth Games coin went into circulation in 2011 to commemorate the fourth youth games which was hosted on the Isla of Man.

According to the website ChangeChecker, even though the coin was issued in 2011 - it was until it was posted on a Facebook coin group in 2018 that its popularity began to grow and the price began to skyrocket.

The coin is usually considered one of the Isle of Man's most "sought-after" coins.

This is because mintage figures for British Isles coins are hard to track down, so the true mintage figure for these types of coins is not widely known, so it can't be said how rare they are - making them a collector's item.

Ben added: "Every time I get change, I'm always checking them now because you just never know and it's easy to check.

"Just a simple search on eBay and see what's the lowest price it's going for and if there's a profit to be made then I'll sell again.

"Check your coins as you could have spare change in your back pockets.

"You could literally be sat on a fortune without even realising."

Source:
courtesy of MIRROR

by Ruby Flanagan, Money Reporter

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