A RARE £2 coin has sold well above its face value on eBay – and it's all because it has a very peculiar fault.

The design error has meant the coin is left looking like a runny fried egg, as the middle has "spilt" out onto the outer rim.

Because of the strange quirk, bidders were willing to stake up to £105 on the coin.

Six budding collectors battled it out to claim the copy for their own.

The final sale was called on March 20.

The collectors placed a total of eight bids between them and the rare coin eventually sold for over 50 times its face value of £2.

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Two pound coins like this one have two metal rings – one on the outside made of a yellow nickel-brass ring and the one inside is made of a steel coloured nickel plated brass.

But this error coin has been mis-struck somewhere in the minting process, meaning the middle ring is not perfectly lined in the centre.

The Royal Mint manufactures between three million and four million coins a day, so often things will go wrong.

This coin has double the story to tell though.

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Not only does it sport the odd error, but it already has a commemorative design on the reverse.

It's known to collectors as the Charles Dickens £2 and was issued in 2012 to mark the 200th anniversary of the author's birth.

The design aimed to celebrate the life and work of Charles Dickens, spelling out the titles of some of his most famous novels and characters including Little Dorrit, Bleak House, and a Tale of Two Cities.

And those words are written in the shape of Dickens' profile on the coin.

Around 8.1 million were minted, which doesn't make it a particularly rare coin from the get go – but the unusual error will have piqued the interest of collectors looking for a more original copy to get their hands on.

It wouldn't be the first time a faulty copy of the design has gone under the virtual hammer either.

One with two errors of its own sold for £205 previously, while another sold for a whopping £350 because the writing was claimed to be upside down.

Could one pop up in your change?

Error coins are still legal tender, so while they may look a little odd there's still a high chance they could turn up in your change.

So long as they're not too misshapen they might make their way through tills or hands, parking machines or vending kiosks and slip by unnoticed.

Keep an eye out though, and you could be quids-in.

But that being said, the error isn't supposed to be there in the first place, so the version you find won't have been made in a high volume.

They're not as likely to show up in your change as other rare designs, but that can often spur collectors to bid more money if you try to sell on eBay.

The harder they are to find the more profit you might make.

It's the same with limited edition designs that The Royal Mint officially releases with low mintage figures – because less are circulating they are deemed more scarce and valuable by collectors.

But experts warn that a number of fake coins often end up in circulation, so you have to be careful when you're bidding online.

Change experts like Coin Hunter or Change Checker will help you verify if your rare finds are real, and they can help place a value on coins you have.

You can scroll through other eBay listings to get a general idea of how much collectors are willing to pay too.

And usually you can determine if something is the real deal by the number of bidders who were willing to stake their claim on it.

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We've often seen bidding wars break out on the most highly sought-after copies.

But keep in mind that a buyer can always pull out of the sale, which means it won't have sold for the price that it may say it has.

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