This is kinda annoying me now, as I no longer have it (was pre-collecting days) but I am sure that one day I got a 1968 two pence. I remember because I thought "that's odd, they didn't go decimal till 1971".

I have since found out that sets of the new coins where released in 1968, three years before they where legal tender, but I am unsure as to how these where dated (68 or 71). Is it possible that I had one of these, and if so how stupid was I to let it go?

It was not a 5 or 10p, it was defiantly a two pence.

Was I seeing things?

I believe they may have minted the coins dated 1971 beginning in 1968 or so, as well as the 1967 coins being minted a bit into 1968 or so. Frankly changing a whole coinage is a huge job that spans years, so it is possible that the coins were minted earlier and some went out in starter sets similar to the Euro starter kits released before the introduction of the Euro so people knew what they would look like etc. Perhaps one of our UK members that was around then can recount better than I can, since I am not in the UK, nor was I around to remember that time either.

Looking around ebay it seems the sets contained 1968 5 and 10's, and 1971 dated 1/2 1 and 2's. So no clues there

Cannot tell you about this particular piece, but in general monarchies tend to put the "actual" year on the coins. I mean, if a coin that is supposed to get into circulation in 2000 is minted in early 1999, for example, and the king/queen depicted dies in mid 1999, that would look kind of odd. So maybe a few pieces were issued for testing purposes? Or might that have been a predecimal halfpenny? Pretty much the same diameter as a 2p coin ... nah, those were not made in '68. Hmm.

Christian

Haha true, now that you mention it I do recall reading that they had to take into account the risk of the Queen croaking it during the production of such a large amount of coins. The risk however was deemed low and irrelevant in the face of the necessary change in coinage.

I maybe mistaken, but aren't some Dutch and Belgian, and perhaps even Luxembourgian coins dated 1999, which would have been pre-Euro, and with their respective monarchs on them?

Spain issued 1999 euro coins in 2002.

1999 was certainly not "pre-euro". After all, the euro was born or launched on 1-Jan-99, and I even made money transfers and card payments in € in that year. It's just that the changeover and the cash production took so darn long. So using 1999 as the first year on the coins makes sense, as does using 2002.

FWIW, euro coin production in both France and Germany started in mid-1998. France put "1999" on these pieces, Germany picked "2002". Most monarchies used 1999 as the first year, with the exception of Luxembourg where Henri became Grand Duke in 2000. Due to his age and the relatively low mintage volume, starting with 2002 was not a problem. Same with Monaco and the Vatican, except that MC started with 2001 ...

Christian