Royal Mint

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The Royal Mint is the body permitted to manufacture, or mint, coins in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The Royal Mint originated over one thousand years ago, but it has functioned since 1975 as a Government Trading Fund, operating in much the same way as a government-owned company. It now has executive agency status however is currently undergoing the process of being converted into a Government owned business. The Royal Mint as a body reports to HM Treasury however departmental day to day responsibilities are handled by the Shareholder Executive. It not only mints coins for the UK, but also mints and exports coins to many other countries. It also produces military medals, commemorative medals and other such items for governments, schools and businesses.

The mint has an extensive collection of coins from the 16th century onwards. The collection is housed in eighty cabinets made by Elizabeth II's cabinet maker, Hugh Swann

The mint operates on a single site in Llantrisant, South Wales.

The annual Trial of the Pyx checks coins produced for the UK government for size, weight and chemical composition.

1 History
- 1.1 References
2 See also
3 External links

[edit] History

The London Mint first became a single institution in 886, during the reign of Alfred the Great, but was only one of many mints throughout the kingdom. By about 1279 it had moved to the Tower of London, and it finally achieved a monopoly in the 16th century.

Isaac Newton, who took up the post of Warden of the Mint in 1696, became perhaps the best-known Master of the Royal Mint, 1700-1727. He unofficially moved the Pound Sterling to the gold standard from silver in 1717. In 1811 the mint moved out of the Tower to a new factory on Tower Hill, and in 1967 the building of a new mint began in its current site in Llantrisant.