20p Dating Error?

[Half-Pint]

Thought this was an appropriate place to share this

The money people have messed up again! Anyone who works with handling large numbers of 20p get checking!

Undated 20p's

The news article to go with this:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090629/tuk-mi...50-45dbed5.html

Anyone on here got one?

[£400 for a Penny ?]

Anyone want to sign up to a conspiracy theory ?

With the 1933 penny in mind, or maybe Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory there is a part of me that thinks "what an excellent way to focus everyone's attention on the coins in their pocket - to broaden the audience for collectable coins"

I had £15 worth of 20p, only 5 new style, no joy.

Perhaps I'm jealous ?

[Gary D]

Anyone want to sign up to a conspiracy theory ?

With the 1933 penny in mind, or maybe Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory there is a part of me that thinks "what an excellent way to focus everyone's attention on the coins in their pocket - to broaden the audience for collectable coins"

I had £15 worth of 20p, only 5 new style, no joy.

Perhaps I'm jealous ?

There was a guy on the BBC this morning from the London Mint Office, that bastion of everything crap about commemorative coins I mean tokens, telling the public all about it and getting their web address in at least once in every sentence. I think they had got hold of some and were trying to pedal them for £50 each. Just look at ebay if you want one, there's usually dozens on there at any one time, going for anything from £10-£30. There's only an estimated 50-100 thousand of them so get one quick while you can.

Gary

[£400 for a Penny ?]

[ going for anything from £10-£30. There's only an estimated 50-100 thousand of them so get one quick while you can.

Gary

Last time I looked it was £200 ??

NURSE, It's time for my medicine.

[scott]

yea its those mules that used to sell for £20, very dissapointed about them being annouced, now i will never flipping find one

[scott]

good god, they are selling for silly money on ebay, like £90-500

[£400 for a Penny ?]

good god, they are selling for silly money on ebay, like £90-500

Ah, no-one does mass hysteria quite like the British. Makes you proud.

[Mat]

I cannot believe the news has gone and spoilt it all for us dealers and some collectors, the mass hysteria has made the ebay market for these increase by 10x fold!

Last few weeks the price finally settled for these at about £35 on average, they were going for £300 at the start and eventually worked down to an average of £35 until today, check ebay and now the school boy erroneous public are bidding £200, £300 and as we speak there is one at £620 at the moment. I cannot see it being paid for though, do some research people! In 2 weeks they will be going for £50 again max.

[scott]

yea and not only that, us collectors will miss out because people will be looking for them

[1949threepence]

Last time I looked it was £200 ??

NURSE, It's time for my medicine.

Just looked at e bay ~ there was a bidding war going on for what looked to be BU gem example, and the current bid was over £1k. Underneath was a buy it now one, for £250.

I wonder just how many are in circulation.

[DaveG38]

There is one on there at the moment bidding at £4000!!!!! with 9 minutes to go. Mind you looking at the bidders, of which there are 25 or so, there is something odd about this which suggests some ghost bidding to get the price up, possibly for a future sale or to panic somebody into a late very high bid. Certainly, many of the later bids are from bidders with no history and next to no feedback, so it all smells to me.

[£400 for a Penny ?]

Hmm,

And the person who started this thread was a first time poster.

It's probably something and nothing but it does remind one of the short selling that went on and got banned on the stock market 6 months ago - people whipping up mayhem and making money in the midst of it.

Glad I'm not alone in thinking that something somewhere in all this isn't right.

No idea what though

[JustAnna]

Hello Everyone,

I have just come on this site for some advice really. I'm not a coin collector and thought this would be the best place to get an honest answer to my question about this 20p Date Error coin. My 10 year old son has found one in his money box and now thinks he is the richest boy in the world! We are watching a few on ebay and one went last night for £5800.00. I have tried to explain to him that it is very unlikely that the seller of that coin will get that sort of money. Can someone tell me what we should do with our coin? Should we stick it on ebay and hope for the best or keep it safely tucked away and re visit it in 5 or 10 years? Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for taking the time to read this

Anna (mother of a 'supposedly' rich 10 year old!! )

[DaveG38]

Hello Everyone,

I have just come on this site for some advice really. I'm not a coin collector and thought this would be the best place to get an honest answer to my question about this 20p Date Error coin. My 10 year old son has found one in his money box and now thinks he is the richest boy in the world! We are watching a few on ebay and one went last night for £5800.00. I have tried to explain to him that it is very unlikely that the seller of that coin will get that sort of money. Can someone tell me what we should do with our coin? Should we stick it on ebay and hope for the best or keep it safely tucked away and re visit it in 5 or 10 years? Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for taking the time to read this

Anna (mother of a 'supposedly' rich 10 year old!! )

Anna,

In making this decision, you have to understand a little of the history of this error coin. When they were first discovered some months ago, examples were going on eBay for initially £250 or so. As more and more were found, the law of supply and demand took over and prices started to fall, until around a week ago you could get one for £25, which is probably the going rate. Then all of a sudden the Times 'broke the story' and suddenly the world and his wife goes mad trying to find these error coins and prices on eBay rocket to, as you say, £5800 - there is one on there at present for £8000 on a 'buy it now' basis.

However, for a coin to be worth this kind of money it usually has to be extremely rare. Take the 1933 penny, for instance, of which there are about 6 examples. These go for huge money if they are ever available, but precisely because they are so rare. The question you need to ask is whether this coin is truly rare and the simple answer is no, as there are currently some 250+ examples on eBay at the moment. Also, there has been a steady stream of these on eBay for months now, and the Royal Mint seems to think that there are 200,000 examples out there. If you consider that the 1913 third farthing had a mintage of 288,000 only, yet you can buy one in very nice condition for £50 or less then you will see that this error coin whilst scarce and interesting is not rare.

So what do you conclude from this? Firstly, the current bubble will subside when people start to realise that there are not fortunes to be made from this coin, just a modest profit, if you are lucky enough to find one. Secondly, to get any kind of premium price, you need to get in quick whilst the bubble is still expanding. Thirdly, forget the sort of four figure sums seen on eBay. If you look at the £5800 coin you will see that the anonymous bidders who took it up to £5000 or so, all have virtually no feedback and are, therefore, in all probability fake bids to try and push the price up or 'fix' the market in peoples minds. I doubt very much whether they were genuine bids and I also doubt whether the winning price will be paid. More likely the seller will claim a refund of fees from eBay from a non-paying bidder.

[Rob]

Hello Everyone,

I have just come on this site for some advice really. I'm not a coin collector and thought this would be the best place to get an honest answer to my question about this 20p Date Error coin. My 10 year old son has found one in his money box and now thinks he is the richest boy in the world! We are watching a few on ebay and one went last night for £5800.00. I have tried to explain to him that it is very unlikely that the seller of that coin will get that sort of money. Can someone tell me what we should do with our coin? Should we stick it on ebay and hope for the best or keep it safely tucked away and re visit it in 5 or 10 years? Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for taking the time to read this

Anna (mother of a 'supposedly' rich 10 year old!! )

It will always be a collectable coin as long as there are people collecting them because the Royal Mint makes very few errors and this is a true error coin as opposed to a faulty strike which would be a random event. Having said that, 2 minutes ago on ebay there were 563 undated 20p coins listed. These have been known about for months and have had a continuous presence on ebay since their discovery, so ebay listings alone must run into thousands. The mint estimated 100,000-200,000 were struck. This is NOT rare. The general consensus is that they are worth about £30 or so based on coins of similar rarity. If you can find someone stupid enough to pay £300 or whatever for it then I suggest you take the money and run. You can always find another one to replace it, and if you really want one for posterity you should be able to get one for a few tens of pounds by waiting long enough for the hysteria to die away. This is a ludicrously overheated market.

[Rob]

However, for a coin to be worth this kind of money it usually has to be extremely rare. Take the 1933 penny, for instance, of which there are about 6 examples. These go for huge money if they are ever available, but precisely because they are so rare.

To put this particular coin into context, there are only 2 examples available to collectors. The last time a 1933 penny was sold appears to be the one on Mark Rasmussen's Spring 2006 list for £45000. I think I would prefer to have a single 1933 penny to 10 or even 200 undated 20p's even if they did cost the same amount.

[JustAnna]

Hello Everyone,

I have just come on this site for some advice really. I'm not a coin collector and thought this would be the best place to get an honest answer to my question about this 20p Date Error coin. My 10 year old son has found one in his money box and now thinks he is the richest boy in the world! We are watching a few on ebay and one went last night for £5800.00. I have tried to explain to him that it is very unlikely that the seller of that coin will get that sort of money. Can someone tell me what we should do with our coin? Should we stick it on ebay and hope for the best or keep it safely tucked away and re visit it in 5 or 10 years? Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for taking the time to read this

Anna (mother of a 'supposedly' rich 10 year old!! )

It will always be a collectable coin as long as there are people collecting them because the Royal Mint makes very few errors and this is a true error coin as opposed to a faulty strike which would be a random event. Having said that, 2 minutes ago on ebay there were 563 undated 20p coins listed. These have been known about for months and have had a continuous presence on ebay since their discovery, so ebay listings alone must run into thousands. The mint estimated 100,000-200,000 were struck. This is NOT rare. The general consensus is that they are worth about £30 or so based on coins of similar rarity. If you can find someone stupid enough to pay £300 or whatever for it then I suggest you take the money and run. You can always find another one to replace it, and if you really want one for posterity you should be able to get one for a few tens of pounds by waiting long enough for the hysteria to die away. This is a ludicrously overheated market.

Hi Rob,

Thank you very much for your advice. Looks like I will be taking your advice 'taking the money and running to the nearest shop which sells a play station 2 if my son has anything to do with it!!!' As you say, if someone is daft enough to pay over the odds for it well I guess my son can purchase his PS2 instead of just a game for it! Looks like there will now be 564 undated 20p coins listed on ebay now! lol.

Thanks again - and have a good day

Anna

[JustAnna]

Hello Everyone,

I have just come on this site for some advice really. I'm not a coin collector and thought this would be the best place to get an honest answer to my question about this 20p Date Error coin. My 10 year old son has found one in his money box and now thinks he is the richest boy in the world! We are watching a few on ebay and one went last night for £5800.00. I have tried to explain to him that it is very unlikely that the seller of that coin will get that sort of money. Can someone tell me what we should do with our coin? Should we stick it on ebay and hope for the best or keep it safely tucked away and re visit it in 5 or 10 years? Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for taking the time to read this

Anna (mother of a 'supposedly' rich 10 year old!! )

Anna,

In making this decision, you have to understand a little of the history of this error coin. When they were first discovered some months ago, examples were going on eBay for initially £250 or so. As more and more were found, the law of supply and demand took over and prices started to fall, until around a week ago you could get one for £25, which is probably the going rate. Then all of a sudden the Times 'broke the story' and suddenly the world and his wife goes mad trying to find these error coins and prices on eBay rocket to, as you say, £5800 - there is one on there at present for £8000 on a 'buy it now' basis.

However, for a coin to be worth this kind of money it usually has to be extremely rare. Take the 1933 penny, for instance, of which there are about 6 examples. These go for huge money if they are ever available, but precisely because they are so rare. The question you need to ask is whether this coin is truly rare and the simple answer is no, as there are currently some 250+ examples on eBay at the moment. Also, there has been a steady stream of these on eBay for months now, and the Royal Mint seems to think that there are 200,000 examples out there. If you consider that the 1913 third farthing had a mintage of 288,000 only, yet you can buy one in very nice condition for £50 or less then you will see that this error coin whilst scarce and interesting is not rare.

So what do you conclude from this? Firstly, the current bubble will subside when people start to realise that there are not fortunes to be made from this coin, just a modest profit, if you are lucky enough to find one. Secondly, to get any kind of premium price, you need to get in quick whilst the bubble is still expanding. Thirdly, forget the sort of four figure sums seen on eBay. If you look at the £5800 coin you will see that the anonymous bidders who took it up to £5000 or so, all have virtually no feedback and are, therefore, in all probability fake bids to try and push the price up or 'fix' the market in peoples minds. I doubt very much whether they were genuine bids and I also doubt whether the winning price will be paid. More likely the seller will claim a refund of fees from eBay from a non-paying bidder.

Hello DaveG38

Thanks to you too for taking the time to respond to my post. Looks like we will be putting the coin on ebay and we will be happy with what we get! Hopefully there will be someone daft enough to pay over the going rate for this coin. If not what ever we get will be more that '20p'! I have found info given by yourself and Rob who also responded very helpful - I will not be buying a safe to keep it locked up in for a few years!

Thanks again guys

Anna

[Dg43]

Should we stick it on ebay

Anna, Rob's advice is sound, this is nothing but midsummer madness, however if you are going to auction it on ebay it might be a good idea to go for a quick 3 day auction, rather than a ten day one, in case this whole thing blows up!

David

[JustAnna]

Should we stick it on ebay

Anna, Rob's advice is sound, this is nothing but midsummer madness, however if you are going to auction it on ebay it might be a good idea to go for a quick 3 day auction, rather than a ten day one, in case this whole thing blows up!

David

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your response. Was going to go for a day sale though! Before any of the silly people bidding silly money find this forum and read what I have read!

Thanks again for your advice

Anna

[Dg43]

Good luck, tell us how much you get!

Just a thought, you do have one of the new type 20p's with neither a date on the obverse (Queen's head side) or reverse (shield side)? I.e no date at all? Only some people selling on ebay seem to have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The old 20p has no date on the obverse but it is dated on the reverse. These are worth .....20p.

David

[JustAnna]

Good luck, tell us how much you get!

Just a thought, you do have one of the new type 20p's with neither a date on the obverse (Queen's head side) or reverse (shield side)? I.e no date at all? Only some people selling on ebay seem to have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The old 20p has no date on the obverse but it is dated on the reverse. These are worth .....20p.

David

lol yes David. I may be blonde but its dyed! I will of course let you know how much it sells for - I put it on at a 99p start and its already up to £21 with 23 hours to go! I will try and upload my ebay pics too so you can see it!

[Gary D]

Hello Everyone,

I have just come on this site for some advice really. I'm not a coin collector and thought this would be the best place to get an honest answer to my question about this 20p Date Error coin. My 10 year old son has found one in his money box and now thinks he is the richest boy in the world! We are watching a few on ebay and one went last night for £5800.00. I have tried to explain to him that it is very unlikely that the seller of that coin will get that sort of money. Can someone tell me what we should do with our coin? Should we stick it on ebay and hope for the best or keep it safely tucked away and re visit it in 5 or 10 years? Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for taking the time to read this

Anna (mother of a 'supposedly' rich 10 year old!! )

It will always be a collectable coin as long as there are people collecting them because the Royal Mint makes very few errors and this is a true error coin as opposed to a faulty strike which would be a random event. Having said that, 2 minutes ago on ebay there were 563 undated 20p coins listed. These have been known about for months and have had a continuous presence on ebay since their discovery, so ebay listings alone must run into thousands. The mint estimated 100,000-200,000 were struck. This is NOT rare. The general consensus is that they are worth about £30 or so based on coins of similar rarity. If you can find someone stupid enough to pay £300 or whatever for it then I suggest you take the money and run. You can always find another one to replace it, and if you really want one for posterity you should be able to get one for a few tens of pounds by waiting long enough for the hysteria to die away. This is a ludicrously overheated market.

Hi Rob,

Thank you very much for your advice. Looks like I will be taking your advice 'taking the money and running to the nearest shop which sells a play station 2 if my son has anything to do with it!!!' As you say, if someone is daft enough to pay over the odds for it well I guess my son can purchase his PS2 instead of just a game for it! Looks like there will now be 564 undated 20p coins listed on ebay now! lol.

Thanks again - and have a good day

Anna

Over a thousand now, surely enough for people to realise that they are not rare. Loads of 2008s to catch the unwary

[scott]

i saw one listed as 2008 20p, with a picture of the reverse, it was £18.11

[1949threepence]

Interestingly, the Royal Mint are offering £50 each for them, as they have received interest from "collectors". Took up a full page spread in the Express (and probably other papers too)