WHEN teenager Amber Price counted her change from the school tuck shop she was hoping to have enough left for a few more treats.

But the 14-year-old got more than she bargained for when she uncovered a rare 20p coin – which could be worth thousands of pounds.

Now Amber and her mum Amanda Taylor, from Stroud, are wondering if they are the first family in Gloucestershire to find one of the valuable dateless 20p coins.

Miss Taylor, from Summer Street, said she could not believe it when Amber came home from Archway School with one of the newly-minted mistakes.

She said: "We heard about these 20ps and checked all our money without having any luck earlier in the week.

"Then Amber came home and said 'guess what had happened to me' that day.

"She'd found it in her tuck shop change.

After discussion the family, which also includes Amber's brother Ryan, seven, decided to sell the 20p on internet auction site eBay.

"There are an awful lot of fakes online but this is a genuine one," said Miss Taylor, who works as a lunchtime supervisor at Stroud Valleys Primary where Ryan goes to school.

"It was Amber's coin and it will be her money, whatever she gets for it.

"Hopefully, it will be enough to put in a bank account."

The faulty 20ps are believed to be the first British coins for 300 years to enter circulation without a date on them.

Up to 200,000 of them are estimated to be in people's pockets and tills.

Coin collectors said at first the 20ps could be worth £50 each, but some reports claim one has already sold online for £7,100.