A technical error has led to the Royal Mint issuing between 50,000 and 200,000 20 pence pieces which have been struck incorrectly.

The coins were issued following the introduction of a new design with a partial image of the Royal coat of arms being shown on the reverse (or “tails”) side of the coin with the date (year) the coin was struck being moved to the heads side of the coin, which shows the Queens’ head.

The date needed to be moved to the “heads” side of the coin to accommodate the new shield design on the “tails” side.

However, the batch in question was produced using the new “tails” side with the old “head” side, which resulted in the coins being issued without a date shown.

It is believed that it is nearly 300 years since the date was last not shown on a UK coin.

These 20 pence coins are being deemed to be collector’s items and indeed a quick search on www.ebay.co.uk shows that some of these coins are receiving bids of several hundred pounds.

It would therefore be very shrewd to check your change now to see if you are the lucky holder of one of these miss-struck 20 pence pieces.

You could be literally sitting on a fortune!!

Have you found one? Please let us know by leaving a comment below -