In 2008 there was an incredibly unusual lapse in the strict quality control at the Royal Mint. A batch of 20p coins were issued with mismatched sides. The result is a number of 20p coins have entered circulation without a date.
The mismatch involves the new design reverse side (tails) and the old design Queen's portrait side. The old obverse (heads), bearing no date, is married to the new reverse (tails). Ordinarily this would only result in some coins of 2008 being issued with an older date (say, 2007 for example).
But with the creation of the new designs for the 2008 coinage the date on the 20p was moved to the Queen's portrait side. On the old coins the Queen's portrait side had no date, so the result of this mismatch is not an incorrectly dated 20p, it is a wholly undated one.
The London mint office says - "The last time an undated coin entered general circulation was over 300 years ago." This is testimony to the excellence of The Royal Mint, the facility that strikes all Britain's circulating coinage, which is at the forefront of minting technology the world over.
Its stringent quality control procedures mean that error strikings such as the undated 20p are exceptionally rare indeed. The Royal Mint does not know exactly how many undated coins were produced and released into circulation, but estimates range between 50,000 and 200,000.
I have one of these rare 20p coins and am looking to sell, if you are interested please contact me via email.
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