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Britain's Royal Mint admits issuing 20-pence coins with no dates in rare mistake
Goldbully
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Can you imagine if the U.S. Mint made this error?????
SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press Writer
9:34 AM PDT, June 29, 2009
LONDON (AP) — Next time you're in Britain, check your change.
The Royal Mint admits it's made a rare error, producing coins without a date on them for the first time in centuries.
The mint said Monday that at least 100,000 of the year-less 20-pence coins, normally worth 33 U.S. cents at face value, slipped into circulation at the end of last year. If found, one coin would garner hundreds of times more on the collectors' market.
Numismatists say the last time the Royal Mint accidentally left out the year on a coin was in 1672.
The latest error happened when the Royal Mint issued a new design of the coin that moved the year from the back side to the one that bears the head of Queen Elizabeth II. But mint spokesman Jadon Raj said one batch that didn't add "2008" to the head's side got through quality control.
Raj said the mint couldn't issue a recall because the coins are legal to use.
"As far as were concerned their face value is 20 pence, so there isn't an issue for us," he said.
The mint admitted the mistake after a private British company called the London Mint Office launched a promotion Monday offering to pay 50 pounds ($83) per coin. Market experts noted that the coins already have been quietly selling to online collectors for up to six times higher.
The mint's last major error, in 1983, involved the production of 2-pence coins that accidentally said "new pence" instead of "two pence." They typically sell today for more than 200 pounds each.
Undated handout photo issued Monday June 29, 2009 by public relations company Watershed of dateless twenty pence coins recently produced by Britain's Royal Mint in error. The Royal Mint admits it's made a rare error, producing coins without a date on them for the first time in centuries. The mint said Monday that at least 100,000 of the year-less 20-pence coins, normally worth 33 U.S. cents at face value, slipped into circulation at the end of last year..(AP Photo/ Watershed/PA)
LA Times Link
SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press Writer
9:34 AM PDT, June 29, 2009
LONDON (AP) — Next time you're in Britain, check your change.
The Royal Mint admits it's made a rare error, producing coins without a date on them for the first time in centuries.
The mint said Monday that at least 100,000 of the year-less 20-pence coins, normally worth 33 U.S. cents at face value, slipped into circulation at the end of last year. If found, one coin would garner hundreds of times more on the collectors' market.
Numismatists say the last time the Royal Mint accidentally left out the year on a coin was in 1672.
The latest error happened when the Royal Mint issued a new design of the coin that moved the year from the back side to the one that bears the head of Queen Elizabeth II. But mint spokesman Jadon Raj said one batch that didn't add "2008" to the head's side got through quality control.
Raj said the mint couldn't issue a recall because the coins are legal to use.
"As far as were concerned their face value is 20 pence, so there isn't an issue for us," he said.
The mint admitted the mistake after a private British company called the London Mint Office launched a promotion Monday offering to pay 50 pounds ($83) per coin. Market experts noted that the coins already have been quietly selling to online collectors for up to six times higher.
The mint's last major error, in 1983, involved the production of 2-pence coins that accidentally said "new pence" instead of "two pence." They typically sell today for more than 200 pounds each.
Undated handout photo issued Monday June 29, 2009 by public relations company Watershed of dateless twenty pence coins recently produced by Britain's Royal Mint in error. The Royal Mint admits it's made a rare error, producing coins without a date on them for the first time in centuries. The mint said Monday that at least 100,000 of the year-less 20-pence coins, normally worth 33 U.S. cents at face value, slipped into circulation at the end of last year..(AP Photo/ Watershed/PA)
LA Times Link
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Comments
<< <i>The US Mint has done this...several times in the past few years with the Presidential dollars. No edge lettering=no date. >>
I think the OP meant in regards to actual circulating coinage. Stuff you'd find in change.
<< <i>Instead we get extra fingers on Lincoln.
But it's not the middle finger is it?
Or is it?
Maybe the workers at the mint are trying to tell coin collectors something.
Ray
<< <i>
<< <i>The US Mint has done this...several times in the past few years with the Presidential dollars. No edge lettering=no date. >>
I think the OP meant in regards to actual circulating coinage. Stuff you'd find in change. >>
Sorry, I forgot that we'll never find a dollar coin in circulation.
<< <i>Can you imagine if the U.S. Mint made this error????? >>
They did! With the 2007 Washingtons, and then the Adams, and then the Jeffersons, followed by some Monroes.
<< <i>I think the OP meant in regards to actual circulating coinage. Stuff you'd find in change. >>
A matter of semantics since all the coins were pulled from bank boxes at local banks.
The name is LEE!
<< <i>Hey! I Found One! >>
Winning Bid: approximately US $595.75!!!