The smallest British coin ever struck goes on sale

The Royal Mint has unveiled the smallest coin it has ever produced. The tiny coin weighs just one fortieth of an ounce and is only 8mm wide. It features a portrait of Britannia in 999.9 fine gold, and is part of a set of coins commemorating Britannia. 9,650 of them have gone on sale at £50 each. As record-breaking coins go, this is definitely one of the most affordable.

The most expensive

The most expensive coin ever sold was the1933 Double Eagle, a $20-gold coin which was auctioned at Sotheby's, New York, on 30 July 2002 and fetched £4,856,370.

The largest

There has been much competition for the title of the biggest coin in the world, but the current holder is this $1 million coin produced by the Perth Royal Mint. The coin is made from 1,000kg of 99.99 gold, and the price of gold means that aside from the face value, the metal included in the coin is actually worth closer to $35 million.

The strangest find

The title of the weirdest place to find coins is a tie. On the one hand there's the Saddle Ridge Hoard, discovered by two Californians who were walking the dog in the back garden. They saw a tiny piece of a metal canister poking out of the dirt and started to dig. They eventually dug up six metal canisters, containing millions of dollars worth of gold coins. So far the couple have made $4 million from selling off the coins - and they have more to spare.

Joint-strangest place to find coins

The white mass you can see on this photo is actually 111 coins discovered in the stomach of a New York Jack Russell. The 13-year-old dog underwent emergency surgery and recovered from his misadventures in coin swallowing.

Coins and Money on AOL
Roman gold coin reaches £400,000 at auction
The two-pence piece worth hundreds of pounds
Couple make more than $4m selling coins found in the back garden