twenty pence errorThe Royal Mint has made a blunder in the issue of the new twenty pence. The new design was to move the date from the front of the coin (‘tails’ side) to the back of the coin (‘heads’ side). It seems that to save time, they merely created the new front without the date and used the old back without updating it.

The error was spotted early but it is believed that around 100,000 of these made it into circulation. Such is this rare event, coin collectors believe that the coin will be worth a lot of money in years to come. Early valuations of this undated 20p are around £50 but the online auction site ebay already has some lucky finders of this coin selling them at over £100, that’s 500 times there original value which isn’t bad if you got it as change from you daily pint of milk down the shops.

No doubt this will cause a huge amount of people sifting through their change to see if they can find one. You may be able to earn a quick buck by selling these straight away but as more and more of these end up in the hands of collectors, they will become harder to obtain by others and therefore much more valuable. Keep it safe for a few years or maybe until the new design is updated and then get a valuation.