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.
Tony Benn: how the modern commemorative stamp nearly cost the Queen her head
A nation woke on Friday 14 March to hear the sad news that Tony Benn had passed away. Whether we believed in his politics or not, for many of us Tony Benn was the last of an era – a national politician of true conviction.
Tony Benn, 1925 – 2014 (picture: Isujosh)
But for philatelists he was something else. Tony Benn was both the father of the modern commemorative stamp and the man who nearly saw the Queen’s head removed from our stamps.
Tony Benn entered Parliament in 1950 before being forced to resign his seat after inheriting his father’s peerage in 1960. He went on to successfully force a change in the law that allowed him to revoke his peerage and return the House in a 1963 by-election.
Stamps to reflect “Britain’s unique contribution”
The following year’s General Election saw Harold Wilson’s Labour Government scrape to power and with it the appointment of Tony Benn to position of Postmaster General.
One of his very first actions was to widen the scope for commemorative stamps “to celebrate events of national importance, to commemorate appropriate anniversaries and occasions, [and] to reflect Britain’s unique contribution to the arts and world affairs”.
Keen to develop his ideas for a more democratic stamp programme, Benn solicited views from the general public. One contribution came from David Gentleman an already well-established stamp designer. He suggested that the Queen’s portrait should be removed from pictorial stamps to give more space and freedom for the designers.
Off with her head
The Robbie Burns issue still included a portrait of the Queen
Benn, of course, was a keen republican and he jumped on the idea as a non-politicised way to achieve his goal of removing the Queen’s head from stamps.
Indeed the Robert Burns stamps (ultimately issued in 1966 with a full portrait of the Queen) were originally commissioned allowing “non-traditional” designs – the result was that 21 of the 40 submissions carried the legend “UK Postage”, a crown or a royal cypher in place of Her Majesty.
Throughout 1965 arguments raged between Benn and Gentleman on one side and the Stamp Advisory Committee, Palace and post office officials on the other. Finally, the Queen made her views clear: her head should remain on British stamps. Benn was not impressed, stating:
“If the Queen can reject the advice of a minister on a little thing like a postage stamp,
what would happen if she rejected the advice of the Prime Minister on a major matter?”
Ironically, it was David Gentleman who was responsible for the final Queen’s head that still features on our commemorative stamps today, creating the silhouette design from Mary Gillick’s original coin design.
The Westminster Collection was privileged to have Tony Benn sign a limited number of Sub-Post Offices First Day Covers in 1997.
A limited number of covers are still in our archive stock and are available at the original issue price of £19.99 (+p&p).
NOW SOLD OUT.
Do you own the UK’s rarest 50p piece? And it’s not Kew Gardens.
Last week a 50p coin that many thousands of people have found in their daily pocket change started to be sold on e-Bay for prices upward of £100.00. Or to put it another way, 200 times its actual value!
Only 109,000 1992 EC 50p were issued into circulation – roughly half of the Kew Gardens 50p.
It was all because the Royal Mint announced that the Kew Gardens 50p coins is the UK’s most scarce circulation coin, with just 210,000 pieces ever been placed into circulation. The result was a media storm and the inevitable overnight ramping of prices.
Half the circulation of the Kew Gardens 50p
But what few people realise is that there is an even rarer UK 50p piece that was issued in half the number of the Kew Gardens coin – just 109,000 coins.
The coin was issued in 1992 to mark the EC Single Market and the UK presidency of the Council of Ministers – perhaps not the most popular of topics, which maybe was the reason so very few were pushed out into circulation. But of course, its lack of popularity at the time, is the very thing that now makes its Britain’s rarest 50p coin.
Sadly, however hard you search, unlike the Kew Gardens 50p, you will not find this one in your change. That’s because it is one of the old-sized 50p coins that were demonetised in 1998.
The coin itself was designed by Mary Milner Dickens and pictures the UK’s place at the head of the Council of Ministers’ conference table. The stars represent each of the nations’ capital cities placed in their relative geographical position.
But it won’t be the coin’s clever design that will guarantee its numismatic interest for years to come. It is its status as the UK’s most rare circulation 50p is what will intrigue collectors and have them searching and saving up in years to come.
Are you interested in owning the UK’s rarest 50p coin?
The 1992 EC Single Market 50p
Limited stocks of the 1992 EC 50p coin are available from The Westminster Collection for £20.
NOW SOLD OUT