2 Pounds - Elizabeth II 4th portrait, 1 oz Fine Silver

The .958 fineness — Britannia silver — was adopted for this series in 1997, reviving a standard not used for British coinage since the early eighteenth century, when it was briefly mandated to protect wrought silver from being melted from circulating coin. The 2010 issue falls within a transitional window: the following year, the Royal Mint shifted the Britannia bullion series to .999 fine silver, making the Britannia silver coins of 1997–2012 a distinct subset defined by their alloy alone.