at above 22 grains until 1344; afterwards its weight was reduced to 18 grains in 1351, to 15 grains in 1412, to 12 grains in 1464, and to 10 grains in 1527. The history of the Royal Mint stretches back to AD 886. For many centuries production was in London, initially at the Tower of London, and then at premises nearby in Tower Hill in what is today known as Royal Mint Court. In the 1970s production was transferred to Llantrisant in South Wales. Historically Scotland and England had separate coinage; the last Scottish coins were struck in 1709 shortly after union with England. The penny after 1500 During the reign of Henry VIII, the silver content was gradually debased, reaching a low of one-third silver. However, in Edward VI's reign in 1551, this debased coinage was discontinued in favor of a return to sterling silver with the penny weighing 8 grains. The first crowns and half-crowns were produced that year. From this point onwards till 1920, sterling was the rule. Coins were originally hand-hammered — an ancient technique in which two dies are struck together with a blank coin between them. This was the traditional method of manufacturing coins in the Western world from the classical Greek era onwards, in contrast with Asia, where coins were traditionally cast. Milled (that is, machine-made) coins were produced first during the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603) and periodically during the subsequent reigns of James I and Charles I, but there was initially opposition to mechanisation from the moneyers, who ensured that most coins continued to be produced by hammering. All British coins produced since 1662 have been milled. By 1601 it was decreed that one troy ounce or 480 grains of sterling silver be minted into 62 pennies (i.e. each penny weighed 7.742 grains). By 1696, the currency had been seriously weakened by an increase in clipping during the Nine Years' War to the extent that it was decided to recall and replace all hammered silver coinage in circulation. The exercise came close to disaster due to fraud and mismanagement, but was saved by the personal intervention of Isaac Newton after his appointment as Warden of the Mint, a post which was intended to be a sinecure, but which he took seriously. Newton was subsequently given the post of Master of the Mint in 1699. Following the 1707 union between the Kingdom