Royal Mint

The Royal Mint is the Mint of the United Kingdom. It was founded in 886 and was located almost 1100 years long in London. Since 1980 it is located in Llantrisant, South Wales. The Royal Mint is Independently Owned and Operated since 2009, which is 100 % owned by HM Treasury, and with it has signed an exclusive agreement for the manufacture of British coins. It also provides money was produced for many other states. In 2011, the Royal Mint employed 765 people.

History

A mint in London has been handed down since the year 886, during the reign of Alfred the Great. This London Mint was at that time but only one of many in England. 1279 she moved to the Tower of London, where she remained for more than five hundred years. In the 16th century it became the monopoly. From 1547, a Master of the Mint was responsible ( mint master ) for the embossing, 1572 proved to be a Warden of the Mint ( the Mint ) coins on their fineness and fought against counterfeiting. Sir Isaac Newton came in 1696 the Office of the Warden to, three years later, that of the master. In 1717 he presented informally to the pound sterling from the gold standard to the silver standard.

While Newton's tenure expanded the Royal Mint and was housed in several simple wooden buildings around the outer wall of the tower. In the 17th century the production of coins was mechanized and was installed rolling and extrusion equipment. The new machines made ​​it difficult to counterfeiting, but also took a lot of space, so there were occasional disagreements with the garrison. After the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars, the decision to move out of the tower fell. The new neo-classical building in East Smithfield, near the Tower, built by James Johnson and Robert Smirke, could be 1809 based. The move was completed in 1812.

In the 1880s, the building was remodeled and expanded. The Royal Mint continuously adapted itself to the technological progress. During the Second World War, the production had to be interrupted several times because air attacks inflicting great damage. Before the conversion of the pound to the decimal system (1971 ), the Royal Mint had reached its capacity limits, as the entire Münzbestand had to be reshaped and foreign customers could not be neglected. The Royal Mint built a new plant in Llantrisant, about 15 kilometers north- west of Cardiff. Queen Elizabeth II opened on 17 December 1968, the first construction phase. Over the next seven years, the Royal Mint production moved gradually to the Llantrisant. In London, the last coin was minted in November 1975. The London building dating back to 1809 is now used by Barclays.

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