22 Facts About Royal Mint

Royal Mint is Britain's oldest company and the official maker of UK coins.

Royal Mint was historically part of a series of mints that became centralised to produce coins for the Kingdom of England, all of Great Britain, the United Kingdom, and nations across the Commonwealth.

Royal Mint operated within the Tower of London for several hundred years before moving to what is called Royal Mint Court, where it remained until the 1960s.

Since 2018 The Royal Mint has been evolving its business to help offset declining cash use.

In 2022 The Royal Mint announced that it was building a new plant in South Wales to recover precious metals from electronic waste.

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The first of this sustainably sourced gold is already being used in a new jewellery division – 886 by The Royal Mint – named in celebration of its symbolic founding date.

The Royal Mint, not wanting to divert manpower from minting more profitable gold and silver coins, hired outside agent Lord Harington who, under license, started issuing copper farthings in 1613.

In 1672, the Royal Mint finally took over the production of copper coinage.

The government invited French engineer Peter Blondeau, who worked at the Paris Royal Mint, to come to London in 1649 in the hope of modernising the country's minting process.

Royal Mint initially produced milled silver pattern pieces of half-crowns, shillings and sixpences; however rival moneyers continued using the old hammering method.

Royal Mint's role, intended to be a sinecure, was taken seriously by Newton, who went about trying to combat the country's growing problems with counterfeiting.

Royal Mint was appointed as a temporary clerk on 12 November 1856, with a £120 a year salary.

In 1859, the Royal Mint rejected a batch of gold found to be too brittle for the minting of gold sovereigns.

The Master of the Royal Mint had been responsible for overseeing the practice since the position's inception in the 1300s.

In 1926, after operating for 72 years, the Sydney Royal Mint closed due to its inferior technology and capabilities being superseded by those in Melbourne and Perth.

Fifth branch of the Royal Mint was established in Mumbai, India on 21 December 1917 as part of a wartime effort.

The Royal Mint produced these until Ireland established its own Currency Centre in Dublin in 1978.

In 2007, the Royal Mint decided to resume its focus on coins, downsizing non-coin related business and discontinuing its Classics range.

In 2012 The Royal Mint had a network of hundreds of UK sellers of their products.

The Royal Mint received over 30,000 entries, with a further 17,000 from a children's competition on Blue Peter.

The Royal Mint regularly produces commemorative coins for the collector's market, with a range of varying quality and made of different precious metals.

Historically, the mint refined its own metal; but following the advice of an 1848 Royal Commission, the process was separated, with the independent Royal Mint Refinery being purchased and operated by Anthony de Rothschild in 1852.