This week marks the 50th anniversary of the Royal Mint relocating its operation from Tower Hill, London to Llantrisant, Wales.
The relocation took place in 1968 in order to accommodate the need for a bigger factory after the Government announced that decimalisation was due to take place.
This meant millions of coins would be taken out of circulation and millions more new ones would need to be minted.
This week is the 50th anniversary of the Royal Mint moving from Tower Hill in London to Wales
The Royal Mint Experience, the visitor centre that opened at the site of the Mint in Llantrisant in 2016, held a number of events over the weekend and on Monday to celebrate the occasion as well as opening a new temporary exhibition, commemorating the big move.
To celebrate the 50 years that the Mint has been operational in Wales, This is Money visited the exhibition to discover 50 facts about the Royal Mint that you might not know...
1. The Royal Mint moved from Tower Hill to Llantrisant in 1968, officially opening on 17 December of that year.
The move was due to the Mint preparing for decimalisation of the pound, which took place on 15 February, 1971, also known as Decimal Day. This meant that the Mint needed a bigger factory to make millions of new coins - and the London site wasn't viable.
The new system meant the pound was retained but was divided into 100 new pence, to make the payment system easier and simpler. 50ps, 10ps and 5ps were introduced and halfpennies, sixpence and shillings all went out of circulation.
2. The Government looked at different locations across the country, assessing 18 different sites when hunting for a new home for the Mint but finally settled on Wales.
It was decided that Llantrisant would be a good location, the Mint claims, because it is fairly close to London, but also because a reasonably large number of Royal Mint employees were happy to make the move there.
3. At the opening of the Llantrisant site, the Queen and Prince Philip were the first to strike coins.
4. There were 60-70 employees who moved from the Mint's previous site at Tower Hill to the new site in Llantrisant. Now, there are currently 900 employees who work for the Mint.
The new exhibition looks into the long history of the Royal Mint from it's time in London to now
5. The Royal Mint was previously located inside the walls of the Tower of London from 1279-1810. Working there was dangerous as coins were made by hand. Many employees were known to lose a finger or an eye due to the unsafe working conditions.
6. The Royal Mint Advisory Committee is the advisory body who promotes the study of coins in the UK. It also decides what will be the next design to go on coins.
The Committee, usually made up of 12 members, has to make sure that the designs are British and represent the values of the Mint.
7. Traditionally, when a new monarch is appointed, their face will appear on a new batch of coins but facing the opposite way to the previous monarch.
There was only one time in the history of the Royal Mint, however, that two monarchs were going to consecutively face the same way on a coin. Edward VIII asked to face the same way as the previous monarch, his father George V, as he preferred that side of his face.
However, as he abdicated the throne, the coins never entered circulation.
Our reporter, Grace, trying to lift up the heavy, solid gold bar that weighs 12.5 kilos
8. Anne Jessopp, current chief executive of the Royal Mint, is the first female chief executive in its 1,100 year history.
9. It can take up to two years for the next commemorative coin design to be decided upon. Anne Jessopp said: 'We do market research when deciding what commemorative coin to do next and look into what coins people have liked before.
'We look well in advance at the anniversaries coming up in the next couple of years.'
10. The Royal Mint Experience has opened a temporary exhibition for the 50th anniversary. Included in the exhibition is a gold bar that visitors can try and lift. The bar, which is monitored closely by security cameras, weighs 400 ounces and is worth £350,000.
11. A new record was set in 2016 when 4million 12-sided £1 coins were struck in a single day.
12. Sir Isaac Newton was the warden of the Royal Mint for the last 30 years of his life. The warden was responsible for a number of different minting procedures as well as acting as the immediate representative of the current monarch inside the mint. However, the role was abandoned in 1829.
13. The raised edges of coins stop them sticking together and protects the head and tail imagery.
A die is engraved before it is used to strike coins, engraving them with a signature head or tail
14. 750 coins are struck per minute in the coin pressing room at the Royal Mint – this equates to 12.5 per second.
15. The warehouse at the Royal Mint can hold 4,600 pallets of coins, which is worth approximately £46million.
16. A single pallet of coins can weigh a tonne.
17. Graham Dyer, the senior research curator for the Royal Mint museum, has worked at the Mint for over 50 years, making the move from London to Wales.
He said about his time working there: 'The Royal Mint is a special place to work – the loyalty and passion of the employees spills over into family life. Sons follow fathers into work here, meaning there is a strong family community.'
Graham has always been a fan of coins. He said: 'I've been a coin collector for all my life which is why I came to work at the Mint in the first place.
'It is the historical aspect I enjoy as coins takes us back through the centuries. My personal favourite coin that I have is a sixpence of Elizabeth I, which my father got for me when I was a boy in a pub.
'Another favourite is a farthing of William and Mary which is a double portrait on a coin, which is quite rare.'
Graham Dyer OBE and his wife, Beverly Dyer, at the 50th anniversary temporary exhibition
18. All 4,700 Olympic and Paralympic medals for the London 2012 games were struck at the Royal Mint.
19. British artist, David Watkins, designed the 2012 London medals. He also designs special effects, including the spacecraft in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
20. The gold and silver medals weigh 412 grams and the bronze medal weighs 357 grams.
21. The 1933 Penny is one of the most famous coins made.
Only six or seven were made in that year but no detailed records were kept and so it can't be known for sure if all were accounted for.
They are one of the most sought after coins by collectors.
22. One of the traditional activities that the Mint still participates is the minting of small silver coins that makes up the money of Royal Maundy.
Starting in the reign of Charles II in 1662, the reigning monarch will personally distribute specially struck silver coins to a number of elderly men and women, close to their age.
The amount of people who receive a purse of Maundy coins reflects how old the monarch is i.e. if they turned 90, 90 people would get a purse of coins.
23. There are 28billion coins currently in circulation in the UK.
24. Britannia, a female warrior, appeared for the first time on Roman coins in 1672 and has appeared on the coins of every monarch since then.
25. The Trial of the Pyx is an annual event where a number of coins are examined, tested and weighed to make sure that they are all consistent and meet the specifications set out in the relevant section of the Coinage Act or Royal Proclamation.
The 1933 Penny is one of the rarest coins that has ever been made - there are only 6 or 7
The Trial usually takes place in January or February at Goldsmith's in London every year and is thought to be the only Mint that conducts such a test.
26. The 1935 coin that was made to celebrate George V's Silver Jubilee was the first coin designed to be a collector's item.
27. When Sir Winston Churchill died in 1965, the Royal Mint issued a commemorative crown coin that was the first time a 'commoner' had been on the same coin as that of a monarch.
28. Lifelike portraits were only used for the first time on British coins in the reign of Henry VIII. Prior to that, no attempt was made to capture the features of a monarch.
29. The phrase 'spend a penny' came from the need to pay one penny for the use of a public toilet, which started during the Great Exhibition of 1851.
30. Proof coins are the highest standard of coin the Mint produces. Brilliant Uncirculated standard is the next level down.
31. The coin pressing machine has a 60 tonne striking pressure.
32. The Royal Mint owns an operational wind turbine, which has been painted green and yellow to make it look like a daffodil. There was a competition to name the turbine and it was dubbed 'Delilah'.
An image from the Royal Mint Tower Hill factory of workers using old coin pressing machines
Workers gather at the opening of the Royal Mint in Llantrisant, Wales, in December 1968
33. The Royal Mint is looking to encourage more young people to get involved in coin collecting. Anne said: 'We are using the Royal Mint Experience as a way to attract more young people and get them excited about coins.
'We've introduced coin albums so that they can start a collection and we also have a lot of school visits in an effort to encourage children to take an interest.'
Graham is also hoping that the younger generation will be interested in coins.
He said: 'The younger children that come to the Experience are so engaged and interested in what the coinage represents, it is refreshing to see. I think it is important to plant the seed of interest when they are young.'
34. Most coin designs are submitted through a design competition opened by the Royal Mint which is either open to the public or to a small group of professional artists.
The £2 coin that is currently in circulation was designed by Bruce Rushin, an art teacher from Norfolk, who won a competition to find the next design in 1997.
Revealed: The new temporary exhibition explains the process of how the coins are made
The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Victory medals were made by the Royal Mint
35. Community is very important to the Royal Mint. As the Mint is an enclosed site, for security reasons, the employees find that they have a strong bond.
Anne said: 'It was really important for us that we told the story of community when creating this exhibition. We wanted to tell the 50 years story through the people who helped create it.'
Chris Barker, information and research manager at the Royal Mint Museum, said: 'When the Mint was based in London, there was a distinct community and sons followed fathers into the business. This is the same in Wales and there is a very niche community.'
36. Chris has written a book about the move, called 'London to Llantrisant: 50 years of The Royal Mint in Wales'.
37. 1p coins are the most produced coins by the Mint.
The Penny Lane mini that is similar to the one that was in the Beatles' Penny Lane video
38. Both the Queen and the Chancellor have to sign off on new coin designs.
Chris said: 'When thinking up ideas for the next commemorative coins, the Royal Mint advisory committee makes up a list of themes, all of which have to be British.
'The shortlist is signed off by the Chancellor, having received feedback from the Treasury when making decisions and is then eventually signed off by the Queen.'
39. 1.5billion new coins are issued in the UK every year
40. Numismatists is the name for coin collectors and there are a number of reasons why people choose it as a hobby. Anne said: 'People collect coins as there is the thrill of the chase when trying to find a rare coin that is in circulation.
'Other people collect because they are interested in history or art, as a coin really is a tiny piece of art. For some, it is an investment for the future.'
Chris said: 'People collect coins as they enjoy the thrill of the hunt and searching for different designs. Since the Olympics, it has kicked off a wider field of interest.
'I want people to be interested in coins as there is so much that goes into the making of them. They really are a piece of artwork.'
The Royal Mint Experience has had over 200,000 visitors since opening its doors in 2016
41. The Royal Mint doesn't just make British coins, it produces coins for around 80 countries across the world, including Thailand and Kenya.
42. The Royal Mint Experience has had roughly 200,000 visitors since it opened in 2016 and has a slew of top ratings on Google and TripAdvisor.
This is Money visited at the start of 2017 to strike new £1 coins before they were released into circulation and said it was a good spot for a family day out.
43. The furnace that is used to soften the metal that will become the coins, making it easier for them to be pressed, is operational for 8,568 hours of the year and it is only closed for the week over Christmas.
44. If you add up the total value of each denomination in circulation today, it comes to £3.88.
45. In 1966, 4billion coins were in use but in 2018, there are nearly 30billion.
46. 20 per cent of the staff that currently work for the Mint have worked there for over 25 years.
47. In 1967, the Beatles released the single Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever which was accompanied by a music video.
In the video, at least two 'Penny Minis' were commissioned to promote the record, using pre-decimal pennies to cover the bodywork.
48. Since the fourteenth century, heraldic shields and crests, that represent royal dynasties, have been used to decorate the reverse of our coins.
49. The Mint has a larger capacity than any other mint in Western Europe, with some of the most advanced coining machinery.
50. The Mint is already thinking about the future and what they can do to encourage more visitors to come to the Experience, despite cash being used less.
Anne said: 'In the New Year, we are looking at starting a new experience where people can come and have their historic coins valued.
'Currently, we run a coin swap where collectors can meet up with other collectors and swap coins to help them complete their collections.'
Graham said: 'Even though we are moving towards a cashless society, we have been here for the last 1,100 years and we will still be here in the future.'
<![CDATA[
]]>
Link hienalouca.com
https://hienalouca.com/2018/12/21/50-facts-you-didnt-know-about-how-the-royal-mint-makes-coins/
Main photo article This week marks the 50th anniversary of the Royal Mint relocating its operation from Tower Hill, London to Llantrisant, Wales.
The relocation took place in 1968 in order to accommodate the need for a bigger factory after the Government announced that decimalisation was due to take place.
This ...
It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.
Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
Dianne Reeves Online news HienaLouca
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2018/12/19/15/7622050-6511689-image-a-31_1545234969803.jpg
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий