Yahoo Finance Rare Aussie 20-cent coins selling for whopping sum
Aussies have been urged to check their wallets to see if they might be in possession.
Aussies in possession of an extremely rare kind of 20-cent coin that dates all the way back to the 1960s could soon be thousands of dollars richer.
When Australia switched from pounds to dollars back in 1966, the country commissioned the Royal Mint of London to manufacture the huge number of new coins needed for the move. Over 30 million 20-cent pieces alone were required, according to collectables website Downies, with tens of millions more made of other coin types.
The website claimed that a very "tiny number" of that '66 batch of 20-cent pieces had a subtle but distinguishable difference — an "upward curve on the baseline of the numeral 2".
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Have you made bank from selling a rare coin? Tell your story to belinda.grantgeary@yahooinc.com
One of 'Australia's rarest coins'
According to Downies, coins with that specific mark are among "Australia's rarest decimal coin types", especially if it's still in good condition.
The site valued the 20-cent coin with the "wavy '2'" at $4750. While Aussies could be almost $5000 richer if they happen to come across one of the coins, it's not known exactly how many currently remain in circulation.
Earlier this month, it emerged a certain number of Australia’s 2020 Firefighter $2 coin, which was designed to pay tribute to those who battled the devastating 2019 bushfires, was selling for a whopping $6000.
An minting error that affected an unknown number of the coins saw a vivid orange ball of flames at the centre of the coin, which was meant to be between two firefighters, ended up on the flipside — right on the late Queen Elizabeth II’s face.
Just a handful of the errors were minted and sold to the general public through the Royal Australian Mint. They have sold for an impressive $5,950.
The error is called ‘bullseye’ and also occurred with the Australia 2019 $2 Police Remembrance coin and 2015 Lest We Forget Coloured $2 coin, which put blue and red target-like circles on the Queen’s face.
A $1 coin minted in 2000 that contains a significant error made by the Royal Australian Mint has fetched up to $3000 online.
“A batch of $1 coins from the year 2000 had been mistakenly produced using the incorrect obverse die (the head side) and subsequently entered circulation,” Perth-based coin expert Joel Kandiah said on TikTok.
“Astonishingly, this error went unnoticed for a year or two.”
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