On 24 August 2008, at the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, the Mayor of Beijing, Guo Jinlong, handed the Olympic flag to IOC President Jacques Rogge, who passed it to the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. By custom each of the three waved the flag six times, and London then staged its eight-minute segment: a double-decker bus toured the stadium, Jimmy Page and Leona Lewis played a Led Zeppelin classic, and David Beckham kicked a ball into the crowd of volunteers. That handover is the moment captured on the 2008 British £2 coin: the four-year countdown to the London Games began right there.

On the reverse one hand passes the Olympic flag to another, with the London 2012 emblem below and BEIJING 2008 LONDON 2012 around the edge. The edge is inscribed I CALL UPON THE YOUTH OF THE WORLD, a summons to the young people of every nation. The obverse carries Ian Rank-Broadley’s portrait of Elizabeth II.

The coin is bimetallic, with a cupro-nickel centre in a nickel-brass ring, like every £2 coin of the period. Some 918,000 were struck for circulation, while Brilliant Uncirculated packs sold only 47,765 against a limit of 250,000, less than a fifth of the plan. The coin was struck by the Royal Mint at Llantrisant. Silver proof, silver piedfort and gold proof versions were also issued.

For an Olympic collection this is the overture to London 2012: the coin marks not the Games themselves but the moment London formally took up the baton. It naturally opens a run of British coins dedicated to the 2012 Games.

Grade UNC: the coin has never circulated, shows no wear and keeps its mint lustre, with at most minor marks from storage in bank bags. On a bimetallic coin this matters: a clean ring and centre keep the contrast between the two alloys.

Every coin in the VPcoins catalogue tells a small story about the country that issued it.