If you do one thing this week, it should be checking your change as a “rare” 20p coin that was printed without a date has sold for 307.5x its face value.
A 20p coin listed on eBay by a user in Manchester sold for £61.50 after a mini-bidding war with 22 bids being placed.
The seller described it as being an “undated mule 20p coin” that was “minted in error in 2008” by the Royal Mint.
So why did the 20p coins get released?
The 20p coin was released in error in 2008 (Image: eBay)
The Royal Mint explains why some 20p coins have no date
The Royal Mint website explains: “In November 2008 a number of 20p coins were incorrectly minted, resulting in the coins being undated.
“This problem affected less than 250,000 coins of the 136 million 20p pieces minted in 2008-09 and was due to the previous obverse (the ‘Heads’ side) being used with the new reverse (the ‘Tails’ side) design, meaning the year of issue did not feature at all.”
Despite the printing error, the Royal Mint has assured Brits that the coin can still be used.
How to get your old coins valued
Recommended reading:
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- How to get your old coins valued - are you sitting on a fortune?
It added: “These coins remain legal tender and still have a face value of 20p.”
The coin which sold on eBay is a 20p coin with the Royal Shield of Arms printed on one side with the late Queen Elizabeth’s portrait on the other.
The Royal Mint website shares images of how the coin should’ve been printed and how it was actually released following the error.
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