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Undated Twenty Pence (20p) Coins Error Mule Worth £50? Click to return to Coin FAQsChard 24 Carat Home Page

2008 First Type Twenty Pence
2008 First Type Twenty Pence
Twenty Pence Index

Second Type Twenty Pence
2008 Second Type Twenty Pence
2008 Undated Mule Type Twenty Pence
2008 Undated Mule Type Twenty Pence
If your coin has a date on it on EITHER side, it is not unique in any way... Please read this page BEFORE YOU PHONE US...
There are also some more interesting links near the end of this page.

Undated Twenty Pence (20p) Coins Error Mule Worth £50?
About six months ago, we became aware of an error variety of British Twenty Pence coin.
When the Royal Mint changed the UK coinage designs in 2008, they made an easy mistake, and produced a quantity of 20p coins with the incorrect pairing of obverse and reverse dies (head and tail sides).
Our photographs show the two different types, and their correct pairing.
The "mule" coins, as such error pairings are known, have the pairing shown in our third, and therefore do not show a date.
From various sources we hear that possibly up to 200,000 of these mule coins were released. Although this type of error is fairly unusual, it has happened to 3 different British coins in the past 30 years, that we know about. This latest 20p mule is almost certainly the most plentiful of the 3 "recent" mule issues.

Media Manipulation
What surprises us slightly is that the "undated 20 pence" mule should suddenly get into the news on most British media, and some international media also. As usual, we here at Chard set out to find out the truth, and publish accurate facts here on our website. We do this free and as a public service.

The (So-Called) London Mint Office
In one sense, we have to admire the inventive genius of some of the marketing people at The London Mint Office. In a move of which Phineas T. Barnum would have been proud, they appear to have issued a press release saying they will pay £50 each for these 20p mules. As usual, the Press have misunderstood, and misinterpreted the statement, as we will explain. In some cases this may have been deliberate, after all, why miss or spoil a good news story, and you don't want to miss out to your competitors when it comes to a bit of midsummer madness on a quiet news week.
It's a great story because ordinary people can get money for (next to) nothing. It's also what people want to hear, so naturally they are very happy and willing to believe it.

Undated20p.com
Looking at the above website, which displays a clear "London Mint Office" logo, we notice that to be able to sell one of these mules, if you have found one, you must first "register" with LMO, which means you get placed on their one born every minute mailing list.
They only allow one registration per household, and we guess that anybody trying to sell more than one mule will get turned away. We would stake a life on it that they would refuse to pay out if somebody turned up with 1,000 of them.
If LMO end up having to buy perhaps 100 mules, at a cost of £5,000 it will have been a very cheap way of getting a 10,000 name mailing list of gullible people.

Value
The first few to come on the market went for slightly silly prices, possibly over £100 each in a few cases. Possibly not stupid as if there had only been a few hundred mules released, they may have been worth even more.
A quick check shows that 3 examples sold recently on a popular auction website (whose name is a four-letter word, so we will avoid using it here), for between £21 and £25 each.

Chinese Whispers
Every telling of the original story seems to get altered, rather like the game of Chinese Whispers.
Here are a few media reports with their most glaring errors highlighted:

Twenty Pence Coins on eBay
There are many press reports about 20p coins worth £7,000 or £700 or £50; many based on purported sales on eBay...
Coming soon...

Other Recent Mules

Urgent Health Warning - Undated Twenty Pence Mule Coins

Undated Twenty Pence Mule Coins - Our Buy / Sell Advice

More To Follow
About 20 more media errors to follow, right now, I'm going home for a beer. More tomorrow...

Our Original London Mint Office Page

Please, if you are going to ask us whether the 20p or £2 coin you own is worth £50, please, please, please read our other pages about them first, and even then the answer is almost certainly no.

Two Pound Necklet Rumour
About 1,000 people every week read one or more of our pages about £2 coins. Hopefully most manage to find what they wanted. A tiny percentage, but still about 20 per week ask us whether a £2 they have found in change / in a drawer / been given is worth more than £2. The answer to 99% of these questions is already on our site. We do not have the time or patience to answer such questions individually.

'Silver Penny' Rumour
The silly season continues with another rumour of a rare type of circulation coin emerging.

Buying Coins
We also buy coins, please see our We Buy Coins page.



...at the Lowest Possible Price

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