2009 20p Coin

Quick answers

Is the 2009 20p rare?

No. 121.6 million were made, so circulated examples are worth face value.

How many 2009 20p coins were made?

121,625,300 were struck for circulation.

What is the 2009 20p made of?

Cupronickel (84% copper, 16% nickel). It weighs 5.0 g and measures 21.4 mm, with a seven-sided (equilateral curve heptagon) shape.

Is the 2009 20p still legal tender?

Yes. Every 20p, including the undated 2008 coin, is legal tender in the UK.

How to recognize it

The other side carries Ian Rank-Broadley's portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, used from 1998 to 2015.

The 2009 20p is seven-sided (equilateral curve heptagon), 21.4 mm across and cupronickel (84% copper, 16% nickel).

2009 20p by the numbers

In mintage terms the 2009 20p ranks 27th lowest of 41 20p dates and varieties from 1982 to 2023. The next scarcer is the 2004 20p (120.2 million); the next more common is the 1993 20p (123.1 million).

For scale, the most common is the 1982 20p with 740.8 million, about 6.1 times as many. The scarcest is the 2023 20p with 525,000, 232 times fewer than this one.

Compared with the dates around it, the 2009 output was about the same as 2008 and about the same as 2010.

Over the 2000s the Mint produced 1.26 billion 20p coins across 11 dates and varieties; the 2009 20p accounts for 9.7% of that.

What to check on your 2009 20p

• Confirm the date. Most dates are common, so the date and any variety decide whether a coin is worth setting aside.
• Count the sides: a genuine 20p has seven curved sides, measures 21.4 mm and weighs 5 g.
• Look at the surfaces under a light. Coins from sets have unbroken luster and color; change-worn coins are dull and scuffed.
• Never clean it. Rubbing or dipping strips the original color and leaves fine scratches.

Matthew Dent's Royal Shield twenty pence (2008 to 2022)

In 2008 every coin from 1p to 50p got a new reverse for the first time since decimalization. The Royal Mint had run an open competition and the winner was Matthew Dent, a young graphic designer whose idea was a jigsaw. He cut the Royal Shield into pieces and gave one to each coin, so the 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p and 50p laid out together rebuild the whole shield, while the round pound of the period showed it complete. The 20p carries its segment of the shield with TWENTY PENCE written in words. There is no numeral and no date on this side.

With the date gone from the reverse it had to move to the portrait side, which meant a new obverse die as well. That change caused the famous undated 20p of 2008: some coins were struck with the new shield reverse and the old obverse, so neither side shows a year. The coin itself stayed the same, seven-sided, 21.4 mm, 5 g and cupronickel. Ian Rank-Broadley's portrait ran until 2015, when Jody Clark's took over, so 2015 comes in two versions. Output swung widely: past 190 million in 2011, past 212 million in 2016, then nothing for change in 2017 or 2018.

For most shield 20ps the only question is condition, since they were made in huge numbers. A few things deserve a second look. First, turn every shield 20p over and make sure a date appears somewhere; if it doesn't, you have the undated mule. Second, the pandemic and the fall in cash use pushed output right down, with 32,725,000 in 2020 and only 19,600,000 in 2021. Third, 2017 and 2018 exist only in sets. Check the portrait on any 2015 coin, since the Rank-Broadley version is the smaller of the two.

Mintage chart

Specifications