Royal Mint facts for kids
 |
|
|
Trade name
|
The Royal Mint |
|---|---|
| State-owned limited company | |
| Industry | Coin and medal production |
| Founded | c. 886 (origins) 1279 (unified system) 16 July 2009 (current legal structure) |
| Headquarters | Llantrisant, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales |
|
Area served
|
United Kingdom & British Overseas Territories |
|
Key people
|
Anne Jessopp (Chief Executive) |
| Products | Coins Medals Bullion |
| Revenue |  £1,403.5 million (2022) |
|
Operating income
|
£18 million (2022) |
| Total assets | £72.4 million (2022) |
| Total equity | £72.4 million (2022) |
| Owner | HM Treasury |
|
Number of employees
|
900+ |
The Royal Mint is the official maker of British coins for the United Kingdom. It is located in Llantrisant, Wales, where it moved in 1968. The Royal Mint Limited is a company fully owned by the UK government. Its main job is to make coins for the UK and other countries. It also sells valuable metal products like gold and silver.
Historically, the Royal Mint was one of many coin-making places in Britain. Over time, it became the main one for England, then Great Britain, and later the whole United Kingdom. It also made coins for many countries in the Commonwealth.
For hundreds of years, the Royal Mint was inside the Tower of London. Later, it moved to a place called Royal Mint Court. In the 1960s, Britain started using a decimal currency system, like most of the world. This meant new coins were needed. So, the Mint moved to a new, larger factory in Llantrisant, Wales, where it is today.
Since 2018, the Royal Mint has been changing its business. Fewer people use cash now. So, the Mint has started focusing on selling precious metals for investment. It also sells old coins and fancy collectibles. In 2022, the Royal Mint announced plans to build a new factory in South Wales. This factory will get valuable metals from electronic waste, which is a sustainable way to get gold. This gold is already being used in a new jewellery line called 886 by The Royal Mint. The name celebrates the Mint's early beginnings around 886 AD.
Contents
History of Coin Making
Early Beginnings
The story of coins in Britain goes back to the second century BC. Celtic tribes from Europe first brought them. The first coins made in Britain were by tribes in Kent around 80–60 BC. They copied coins from Marseille by casting them, not hammering.
When the Romans invaded Britain in AD 43, they set up mints. These mints made Roman coins for about 40 years. A mint in London opened again briefly in 383 AD. But it closed when Roman rule in Britain ended. For the next 200 years, no coins seem to have been made in Britain. Then, in the sixth and seventh centuries, English kingdoms started to appear. By 650 AD, there were as many as 30 mints across Britain.
From 1279 to 1672
In 1279, all the different mints in the country were brought together. Control was given to the mint inside the Tower of London. Most mints outside London closed down. Only a few local and church mints continued. Old financial records show how much money the London mint spent.
By 1464, specific jobs at the mint were clear. The master worker hired engravers and managed moneyers. The Warden made sure the coin dies were delivered. In 1472, a special mint board was created. It gave the main responsibilities to three roles: a warden, a master, and a comptroller.
In the early 1500s, Europe was growing economically. But England had money problems because the government spent too much. By the 1540s, wars with France and Scotland led King Henry VIII to make coins with less valuable metal. This was called "The Great Debasement." To control the country's money better, monasteries were closed. This stopped most coin production outside London.
In 1603, England and Scotland united under King James I. Their money systems partly united too. Scotland's silver coins had much less valuable metal. This caused problems with unofficial coins made by people without permission. By 1612, there were 3,000 such illegal mints. The Royal Mint did not want to stop making more profitable gold and silver coins. So, it hired Lord Harington to make copper farthings in 1613. These private licenses were stopped in 1644. Traders then started making their own unofficial coins again. Finally, in 1672, the Royal Mint took over making all copper coins.
Civil War Mints
_2.jpg)
Before the English Civil War, England had a steady supply of silver for the Tower mint. Extra mints were set up, including one at Aberystwyth Castle in Wales. In 1642, parliament took control of the Tower mint. King Charles I had to leave London. He then set up at least 16 emergency mints across Britain and Ireland. These were in places like Carlisle, Chester, Dublin, and Oxford.
Charles I asked Thomas Bushell, who owned a mint in Aberystwyth, to move his operations. Bushell moved his mint to Shrewsbury, but it only lasted three months. Charles then ordered Bushell to move the mint to Oxford, his royal capital. The new Oxford mint opened in December 1642. There, silver plates and foreign coins were melted down or quickly hammered into new coins. Bushell was in charge of this mint. He worked with famous engravers like Nicholas Briot and Thomas Rawlins. When Prince Rupert took control of Oxford, Bushell moved to Bristol Castle. He continued making coins there until 1645, when parliament took control.
In November 1642, the king ordered Richard Vyvyan to build mints in Cornwall. Vyvyan built a mint in Truro and was its Master until 1646. In December 1642, parliament set up a mint in nearby Exeter. When Prince Maurice captured Exeter in 1643, Vyvyan moved his Truro mint there.
After Charles I was executed in 1649, the new Commonwealth of England made its own coins. For the first time, these coins used English instead of Latin. They also had simpler designs. The government invited French engineer Peter Blondeau from the Paris Mint to London. They hoped he could modernize coin making. In France, hammer-struck coins were no longer allowed. They were replaced with milled coinage, which was made by machines.
Blondeau started testing in May 1651. He made milled silver pattern pieces of half-crowns, shillings, and sixpences. However, other money makers kept using the old hammering method. In 1656, Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell ordered engraver Thomas Simon to make dies with his image. These were to be minted using the new milled method. Few of Cromwell's coins were used by the public. Cromwell died in 1658, and the Commonwealth ended two years later. Without Cromwell's support for milled coinage, Blondeau went back to France. England continued to make hammer-struck coins.
From 1660 to 1805
In 1662, King Charles II brought Peter Blondeau back to England. He wanted to set up a permanent machine-made coinage system. Even with the new milled coins, people still made fake coins and cut pieces off them. To stop this, the words Decus et tutamen ("An ornament and a safeguard") were added to some coin edges.
After the Glorious Revolution in 1688, when James II lost power, parliament took control of the mint. Before this, the mint had been an independent body making coins for the government.
In 1696, Isaac Newton became the mint's warden. This job was supposed to be easy, but Newton took it seriously. He worked hard to stop the growing problem of fake coins. At this time, 10% of the country's coins were fake. People were also cutting pieces off coins, and the silver in coins was worth more than their face value. King William III started the Great Recoinage of 1696. All old coins were taken out of circulation. The Coin Act 1696 made it a serious crime to own or use coin-making equipment. New mints were set up in places like Bristol and York to help with the recoinage. Old coins were valued by their weight, not their face value.
The Acts of Union 1707 joined England and Scotland into one country. London then took over making Scotland's money, replacing the Pound Scots with the English Pound sterling. As a result, the Edinburgh mint closed in 1710. As the British Empire grew, more coins were needed. This, along with the need for new machines and crowded conditions at the Tower of London, led to plans for the mint to move to nearby East Smithfield.
From 1805 to 1914
Tower Hill Location
.jpg)
Construction of the new mint on Tower Hill began in 1805 and finished in 1809. It was across from the Tower of London. In 1812, the move was official. The main building was the Johnson Smirke Building, named after its designer James Johnson and builder Robert Smirke. This building had gatehouses on both sides. Behind it, another building held the mint's new machines. Other smaller buildings housed mint officers and staff. A wall protected the entire site, and the Royal Mint had its own military guard.
By 1856, the mint was not working very well. The coins were not always the right weight or purity. The Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, told the Master of the Mint, Thomas Graham, that the mint needed to improve or it would be taken over by private companies. Graham asked German chemist August Wilhelm von Hofmann for advice. Hofmann suggested his student George Frederick Ansell to fix the problems. Ansell was hired in November 1856.
Ansell found that the mint was very careless when weighing metals. They would weigh silver to the nearest 0.5 ounces and gold to 0.05 ounces. This meant they were losing money from overvalued metals. Ansell helped improve the accuracy of weighing. More precise weighing equipment was ordered. The rules for how much the weight could be off were made much stricter. Between 1856 and 1866, old scales were replaced with new, more accurate ones.
Ansell also noticed gold was being lost during the making process. He found that 15 to 20 ounces of gold could be recovered from the "sweep." This was the burnt rubbish left over from minting. He realized the lost weight was due to oil, dust, and other foreign materials mixed with the gold.
In 1859, the Royal Mint rejected a batch of gold. It was too brittle to make gold sovereigns. Tests showed it had small amounts of antimony, arsenic, and lead. Ansell, who had a background in chemistry, convinced the Mint to let him try to fix the metal. He was able to make 167,539 gold sovereigns from it. In 1868, another problem happened. Gold coins worth £500,000 were made with lower quality gold. Usually, rejected coins were melted down. But many of these bad coins got into circulation. The mint had to return thousands of ounces of gold to the Bank of England. Ansell offered to re-melt the bad coins, but his offer was refused. This caused an argument, and he was removed from his job.
Royal Mint Refinery
After moving to Tower Hill, the Mint was closely watched on how it handled unrefined gold. The Master of the Mint had been in charge of this since the 1300s. But the refining process was too expensive and lacked clear responsibility. A Royal Commission was set up in 1848. It suggested that refining should be done by an outside company. Anthony de Rothschild took on this job. He was part of the famous Rothschild family of bankers. Rothschild leased land next to the Royal Mint in 1852. He bought equipment and premises at 19 Royal Mint Street. He called his business the Royal Mint Refinery.
Mints Around the World
As Britain's power grew and it established colonies, there was a greater need for coins. This first happened in New South Wales, Australia. The 1851 Australian gold rush led to a black market in gold. This threatened the colony's economy. In 1851, the colony asked Queen Victoria for a local mint in Sydney. In 1853, the Queen agreed. The Royal Mint's Superintendent of Coining went to Australia to help set it up. The Sydney Branch of the Royal Mint opened in 1855. It quickly started making many coins. By 1868, gold sovereigns made in Sydney were legal money in all British colonies. In 1886, they were also accepted in the UK.
Because the Sydney branch was successful, similar branches opened in Melbourne (1872) and Perth (1899). After Australia became a federation in 1901, these mints made coins for Australia. The Melbourne and Perth mints were better equipped than Sydney. So, they took over coin production when the Sydney branch closed in 1926. The Royal Australian Mint later became the central mint for Australia. The Melbourne and Perth mints were then given to Australia in 1970.
In Canada, which was under British rule, British coins were used alongside others. In 1858, London started making coins for the new Canadian dollar. By 1890, people wanted a mint in Ottawa to help with the country's gold mines. The new mint opened in 1908. It made coins for circulation, including Ottawa Mint sovereigns. In 1931, the mint came under the control of the Government of Canada. It was renamed the Royal Canadian Mint.
A fifth Royal Mint branch opened in Mumbai (Bombay), India in 1917 during World War I. It made sovereigns from 1918 to 1919 but closed in May 1919. A sixth and final overseas mint was set up in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1923. It made many sovereigns. As South Africa became more independent from Britain, this mint closed in 1941. It later reopened as the South African Mint.
The London Royal Mint officially controlled six mints. But many other independent mints were set up in the British Empire. For example, in New Westminster, British Columbia, a mint was created in 1862 during the British Columbia gold rushes. It made some gold and silver coins before closing. In 1864, an independent mint was requested for British Hong Kong to make silver and bronze coins. But this Hong Kong Mint did not last long. Its coins were often of poor quality, causing big losses. The site was sold in 1868, and the mint machines were sold to the Japanese Mint.
From 1914 to 1966
In 1914, when war started in Europe, the government decided to remove gold coins from circulation. This was to help pay for the war. The government started issuing £1 and 10-shilling paper notes instead. This led Britain to stop using the gold standard for its money in 1931.
From 1928, the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) made its own coins. The Royal Mint produced these until Ireland set up its own Currency Centre in Dublin in 1978.
During World War II, the Mint was very important. It made sure people were paid with real coins instead of just paper money. The Nazis tried to harm the British economy by flooding the country with fake banknotes. Because of this, the Bank of England stopped issuing large banknotes. To meet the demand for coins, the Mint doubled its production. By 1943, it was making about 700 million coins a year. This was despite the constant danger of being bombed.
The Deputy Master of the Mint, John Craig, knew the dangers. He put in place several plans to keep the Mint working if there was a disaster. He added emergency water supplies and made the Mint's basement a strong air-raid shelter. For the first time, women were also hired to work at the Mint. For most of the war, the mint avoided the worst of the bombing. But in December 1940, three staff members were killed in an air raid. Around the same time, an extra mint was set up at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire. Staff and machines from Tower Hill moved there. This auxiliary mint started making coins in June 1941 and worked throughout the war. The Royal Mint in London was hit several times during the war. At one point, it was out of action for three weeks. As technology changed and demand grew, the mint was rebuilt. By the 1960s, only the original 1809 building and its gatehouses remained.
From 1966 to Today
Moving to Wales
On March 1, 1966, the government announced plans to change Britain's money to a decimal system. This meant millions of new coins were needed. The mint on Tower Hill had been too small for many years. It would not be able to handle the huge demand for new coins. Moving to a new, larger site had been discussed since 1870. With Decimal Day set for 1971, the government quickly decided where to build the new mint.
Over twenty locations were considered. These included places in Scotland and Northern Ireland. But the small Welsh town of Llantrisant, near Cardiff, was chosen. Work on the new mint began in August 1967. The first part of the mint, which made coin blanks and struck coins, opened on December 17, 1968. Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, and Prince Charles were there. The second phase of building started in 1973. This added the ability to make coins from raw metals, completing the full coin-making process. The total cost for the land, buildings, and equipment was £8 million. Coin production slowly moved to the new site over the next seven years. The last coin made in London was a gold sovereign in November 1975.
Financial Challenges
After moving to Wales, the mint found it hard to make a profit. The Western world was in a deep economic downturn in the early 1970s. To help with a rising national debt, the mint became a "trading fund" in 1975. This meant it had to make enough money to support itself. This plan worked, and the mint became more profitable by selling many coins to other countries. In 1990, the mint became an Executive Agency. However, by 2001, it reported its first annual loss. This was because it only got 5% of the new Euro coin production, not the 20% it expected.
Despite this, the mint started selling other products. These included jewellery, plates, and figurines. It even created its own "Royal Mint Classics" range of collectibles. This part of the business was popular, but the products were not always well-designed. For example, they sold a hip flask with a £2 coin in it. In 2007, the Mint decided to focus mainly on coins again. It reduced its non-coin business and stopped the Classics range.
The 2008 global financial crisis was another financial blow. The government had to spend £500 billion to help Britain's banks. This led to worries that the government would sell off state-owned organizations. In 2009, the government said it would look into different ways to run the Royal Mint. A month later, it suggested that the mint become a company with the idea of selling it.
Unions and opposition parties were very angry. They called it "selling off the family silver" and said it would cause job losses. But the chief executive of the mint, Andrew Stafford, welcomed the idea. He said it would help the business grow and secure its future. On December 31, 2009, the mint became a limited company called Royal Mint Ltd, instead of being fully privatized. The owner of this new company was The Royal Mint trading fund, which was still owned by HM Treasury. As the only owner, the mint pays £4 million a year to the Treasury. The rest of its profits are put back into the mint. In 2015, the government announced plans to sell off state-owned organizations, and the Royal Mint was considered for sale.
A New Era
In 2012, The Royal Mint had many sellers of its products across the UK. This helped keep prices competitive and made products available to everyone.
2012 London Olympics
.jpg)
When London was chosen to host the 2012 Summer Olympics, the Royal Mint successfully bid to make the Olympic and Paralympic medals. The Mint produced 4,700 gold, silver, and bronze medals. Each medal was pressed 15 times with huge force.
| Medal | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weight | 412 g | 412 g | 357 g |
| Composition | 1.34% gold 93% silver 6% copper |
93% silver 7% copper |
97% copper 2.5% zinc 0.5% tin |
The Mint also held a competition to design special 50p coins. These coins would be used by the public before the Olympics. The Mint received over 30,000 designs. Another 17,000 designs came from a children's competition on the TV show Blue Peter. In total, 29 designs showing different sports were chosen. The youngest designer was only 9 years old. A £2 coin was also released in 2012 to celebrate London handing over the Olympics to Rio de Janeiro.
The Royal Mint Experience
In April 2014, the Mint announced plans for a visitor center in Llantrisant. People could take a guided tour of the factory and learn about the mint's history. The project was estimated to cost £7.7 million. The Welsh Government gave a grant of £2.3 million. The goal was to attract 200,000 visitors a year. In May 2016, the attraction, now called Royal Mint Experience, opened to the public. It cost £9 million in total. The visitor center has an interactive museum and a view of the factory floor. It also has an education center and a press where visitors can make their own souvenir 50 pence coin. More than 80,000 items are on display. These include Olympic medals, a special pattern coin of Edward VIII, and a Janvier reducing machine.
Recent Events
In the same month, the mint received 48 tonnes of silver. This silver was recovered from the shipwreck of the SS Gairsoppa, which sank in 1941. This silver was used to make limited edition coins.
In 2015, after almost 50 years, the mint started making its own bullion bars and coins again. This was under its old brand, Royal Mint Refinery. Then, in 2016, the mint announced plans for Royal Mint Gold (RMG). This is a digital gold currency that uses blockchain technology to trade and invest in gold.
In February 2020, the Royal Mint launched its first financial product. It was a gold Exchange-traded fund (ETF) called RMAU. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange. RMAU is the first gold ETF that is 100% backed by gold from responsible sources. Investors can also turn RMAU into coins and gold bars.
How the Mint Works
Making Coins
The Royal Mint is the only place responsible for making legal tender coins in the United Kingdom. It has a contract with HM Treasury. It makes all of the country's physical money, except for banknotes, which are printed by the Bank of England. On average, it makes two billion pound sterling coins for general use every year. About 28 billion coins are in circulation in total.
Outside the UK, the mint works for over 60 countries. It makes national currencies or supplies ready-to-strike planchets (blank coin discs). In 2015, it was estimated that 2.4 billion coins were made for other countries. This was more than the coins made for the UK. It provided over 60% of the mint's income from circulating currencies. The Mint also regularly makes special commemorative coins for collectors. These coins come in different qualities and are made of various precious metals.
| 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 2.007 | 2.384 | 1.996 |
| International | 2.4 | 2.2 | 2.0 |
Bullion Products
Another important part of the mint's work is selling bullion to investors and the public. Bullion is valuable metal in the form of bars and coins. This makes up half of the mint's income. In the past, the mint refined its own metal. But after advice from a Royal Commission in 1848, this process was separated. The independent Royal Mint Refinery was bought and run by Anthony de Rothschild in 1852. The Rothschild family managed the refinery until it was sold in 1967. A year later, the Royal Mint moved to Wales and stopped its bullion bar business. But the brand was brought back in 2015. Bullion bars made by the mint have the original Royal Mint Refinery emblem and come in different sizes.
| Metal | Fineness | Weights | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Silver | 999 | 100 g | 500 g | 1 kg | ||||
| Gold | 999.9 | 1 g | 5 g | 10 g | 1 oz tr | 100 g | 500 g | 1 kg |
| Platinum | 999.5 | 1 oz tr | 100 g | 500 g | 1 kg | |||
The mint started making bullion coins in 1957. This was to meet the demand for real sovereign coins, as many fakes were being made. Coins were released almost every year until 1982. In 1987, the mint started making a new type of bullion coin: the gold one-ounce Britannia coin, worth £100. A silver version, worth £2, was released in 1997. Production of the previously stopped uncirculated sovereigns started again in 2000. Since 2014, a lunar coin series has been minted each year to celebrate the Lunar New Year. In 2016, a series featuring The Queen's Beasts began.
| Type | Face value | Diameter | Weight | Fineness | Ref. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Britannia | 1 oz tr silver | £2 | 38.61 mm | 31.21 g | 999 | |
| 1 oz tr gold | £100 | 32.69 mm | 31.21 g | 999.9 | ||
| Sovereign | Sovereign | £1 | 22.05 mm | 7.988 g | 916 | |
| Queen's Beasts | 2 oz tr silver | £5 | 38.61 mm | 62.42 g | 999 | |
| 1 oz tr gold | £100 | 32.69 mm | 31.21 g | 999.9 | ||
| 1 oz tr platinum | £100 | 32.69 mm | 31.21 g | 999.5 | ||
| Lunar Series | 1 oz tr silver | £2 | 38.61 mm | 31.21 g | 999 | |
| 1 oz tr gold | £100 | 32.69 mm | 31.21 g | 999.9 | ||
| Landmarks of Britain | 1 oz tr silver | £2 | 38.61 mm | 31.21 g | 999 |
Making Medals
Sometimes, the mint makes medals for government departments. It also makes them for private clients like royal societies, colleges, and universities. The mint has made OBE medals and many military honors. These include the Defence Medal and the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross for the British Armed Forces. For the 2012 Summer Olympics, the mint won a contract to make 4,700 gold, silver, and bronze medals for athletes.
Before 1851, engravers at the mint could make medals on their own for extra money. In 1669, a royal rule gave the mint the only right to make medals with a monarch's portrait. Engravers used the mint's facilities to make their own commemorative medals to sell. A key date for the mint making military medals was 1815. The Battle of Waterloo marked the start of giving out military campaign medals. By 1874, the mint was responsible for making all parts of war medals in the country. It made medals like the New Zealand Medal and the Ashantee Medal.
At the start of the First World War, military medals were made by the Woolwich Arsenal and private companies. However, in 1922, a new medal unit at the mint became the only maker of all Royal and State medals and decorations made of metal. The only exception is the Victoria Cross, which is made by Hancocks & Co. Before 2010, the mint made all British military medals. Now, it competes with other manufacturers.
Trial of the Pyx
The Trial of the Pyx is an old tradition to check if newly made British coins meet the required standards. These trials have been held since the 1100s, usually once a year. The ceremony has been mostly the same since 1282. They are real trials, led by a judge and a jury of expert metal testers. Since 1871, the trials have taken place at the hall of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths. Before that, they were held at the Palace of Westminster. With modern ways of making coins, it is unlikely that coins would not meet the standards. But this was a problem in the past. It was tempting for the Master of the Mint to steal precious metals.
The word "pyx" refers to the wooden chest (from the Greek word pyxis) where coins were put for the jury. There is also a Pyx Chapel in Westminster Abbey. This chapel was once used to safely store the Pyx and other related items.
Coins to be tested are chosen from the Royal Mint's regular production. The Deputy Master of the Mint must randomly select thousands of sample coins throughout the year. These coins are set aside for the trial. There must be a certain number of samples for every number of coins produced. For example, for every 5,000 two-metal coins made, one must be set aside. But for silver Maundy money, it is one in 150.
Today, the trial is an independent check of the Royal Mint. The jury is made up of members of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths. They test the coins to decide if they were made according to the rules set by the Coinage Acts.
Arms
 |
|
Images for kids
-
Waterloo Medal (1849)
See also
In Spanish: Royal Mint para niños
- Banknotes of the pound sterling
- Bullion
- Bullion coin
- Coins of the pound sterling
- Inflation hedge
- List of British banknotes and coins
- List of mints
