Another thing to consider about 2023 KC coins is ... QEII died on September 22nd and (according to the RCM website) it took time for 4 submissions of Charles busts to be designed and a final to be chosen, re-tooling, etc. before any Charles coins went into production in December. As a "coin factory', I would think that the RCM has a fairly tight run schedule, and the need/protocol to mint at least some Charles coins within the same year that he became King was probably not something that was planned for, so they did as many as they could given the very short time in which they had to do it.
Does anyone know firm numbers of 2023 KC coins minted? Last I heard is they didn't differentiate between QE and KC and just issued a total of both.