Posts Tagged ‘Error Coin’
The Royal Mint Coin Packs which look destined to become rarities
As every collector knows, an error can add significant value to a coin. You only need to look at the undated 20p saga to realise just how much impact a simple human mistake can have. Those 20p coins with a mismatching obverse and reverse still frequently sell for as much as £50.
But sometimes it also pays to look further than the coin itself for such slip-ups.
Brilliant Uncirculated presentation packs, or BU Packs, are issued annually by the Royal Mint and are a collector’s item in their own right. They contain a full set of uncirculated coins for the year, along with illustrated packaging and more information about each coin.
These packs are equally prone to human errors, and this year has already been an eventful one in that respect.
In fact neither of the £5 coins in the 2015 BU Packs have edge inscriptions
2015 Annual Coin Set
If you were among the first collectors to secure a 2015 UK Coin Pack from the Royal Mint, the likelihood is you’ve been sent one with a printed error.
The specification in these original packs states an edge inscription for both the Battle of Waterloo and the Churchill commemorative £5 coins, but in fact both of these base metal coins have milled edges with no inscription. Once the Royal Mint were made aware of the error, the packaging was promptly changed to remove the text, but of course a significant number of packs had already slipped the net.
The New Portrait BU Pack
A watermark was overlooked in this image of the Queen and Prince Philip
The latest presentation pack was issued recently to mark Jody Clark’s new effigy of the Queen, with all coins featuring his new portrait.
Again, if you were quick to snap up one of these packs you may have noticed a couple of mistakes which were overlooked in production.
The first is an errant photographic library watermark which somehow found its way onto the final packaging, and appears in an image of the Queen and Prince Philip.
Ian Rank-Broadley is mistakenly named as the obverse designer
The second and more surprising mistake to look out for is the specification on the reverse stating Ian Rank-Broadley FRBS rather than Jody Clark as the obverse designer of the new coins.
At the time of writing, we understand the Royal Mint has withdrawn the pack from sale and are awaiting a re-print.
For now, it is impossible to say precisely how rare these packs are, and it is unlikely that the Royal Mint will ever disclose the exact number.
It’s normal to feel short-changed if you’ve bought any item which has a defect. However, if you have recently added one of these error packs to your collection, you have actually secured something which is quite special to collectors, and may turn out to be highly prized in years to come.
This 50p just sold for £820.00
Finding a coin which is worth a small fortune is the stuff of dreams for every Change Checker. You may remember the excitement over the rarity of the Kew Gardens 50p earlier this year and the bidding frenzy that occurred on eBay shortly afterwards.
Well now there is a coin which has eclipsed the Kew Gardens, both in terms of scarcity, and the sheer scale of money changing hands.
This week, a UK 50 pence piece sold on eBay for £820. Or to put it another way, 1,640 times its face value!
It appears to be an ordinary Aquatics Olympic 50p at first glance, but this coin has a special quality which collectors desire more than anything else: an error.
And the good news is, there are more out there to be found!
The rare Aquatics Olympic 50p sold on eBay this week for £820.00
In 2011 the Aquatics Olympic 50p depicting a swimmer underwater was redesigned by the Royal Mint to make the swimmer’s face more visible. However, before the change was made, a small number of coins were struck with the original design.
The coin on the left is the rare original design, with waves passing over the swimmer’s face
The added sense of excitement and anticipation over this particular error is that nobody knows exactly how many of the original coins were ever struck.
Their rare appearance at auction (and only so far in their original packaging) along with the astronomical amounts which buyers are happy to pay, supports the theory that there are very few around.
The 29 Olympic designs are now commonplace in our day-to-day life, so this coin ultimately is just a normal 50p which you would happily pass over the counter to pay for something. Blink and you would miss that small detail which is worth so much to coin collectors.
But the Aquatics Olympic 50p error is the latest example of why you should always carefully check what’s in your change – there really could be treasure hidden in your pocket!
Do you have an Aquatics Olympic 50p?
You can add it to your collection on the Change Checker App here
2014 Year of the “Mule”: the Royal Mint confirms Lunar Year and Britannia striking errors
The UK 2014 Year of the Horse 1oz Silver ‘Mule’
If you own the 2014 Year of the Horse Lunar Silver Coin or the 2014 Britannia coin, I suggest you go and dig them out before you read any more. That’s because it’s just possible that you are sitting on something rather unusual – a Royal Mint “mule”.
A “mule” is a coin where the one of the sides has been struck with the wrong die. And that’s what happened with some of the Royal Mint’s 2014 Year of the Horse and Britannia coins.
Officially confirmed by the Royal Mint
Year of the ‘Mule’
It seems attention was first drawn to the matter when a US dealer noticed that some of their Britannia coins had a different obverse (heads) side to the rest of the stock, lacking the denticle design around the edge, normally seen with Britannia coins.
The Royal Mint has now acknowledged the error, which has resulted in approximately 17,000 Britannia coins being struck with the non-denticled Year of the Horse obverse and 38,000 Year of the Horse coins having the denticled Britannia version as their obverse.
Selling for 250 times its original value
Perhaps the best recent example of a UK mule in recent years was the undated 20p coin, which was uncovered in 2008. Approximately 250,000 20p coins were struck using an old obverse design, which left them undated. The news was followed by a media frenzy with many millions of people searching their change in the hope finding what was to prove to be a valuable error. Indeed an undated 20p currently changes hands on ebay for around £50 – 250 times its original value.
So what of these latest Royal Mint errors? Unlike the 20p these are not general circulation coins but as bullion coin they will have been sold around the world to coin dealers and investors. That means that they will be much harder for the British general public to track down. Plus, of course, in terms of pure numbers struck, they are considerably scarcer than the undated 20p.
Early listings on ebay have been as high as £500 and above, so if you are lucky enough to own either the 2014 Britannia or Year of the Horse coins, I would definitely dig them out and take a look – it might be your lucky day.
IMPORTANT NOTICE
The Westminster Collection has managed to acquire a small number of the 1oz Silver Year of the Horse ‘Mule’ error coins – if you are interested in owning one please click here for more details.