Contains 8 coins: silver 2/6, 2/-, 1/-, 6d, 3d, bronze ld, 1/2d, 1/4d. Our coin specialist is a 20-year veteran of the international coin trade and runs one of the top-ten coin businesses in the UK. Here we present a fascinating and nostalgic product range which features complete sets of original British coins minted in each year from 1911 to 1989 and collectable Monarch Sets whose coins are selected for each British monarch, starting with Queen Victoria (shown on this page). Our coin sets of Victoria through to George VI contain carefully-selected circulated coins. Those of 1965-67 and Monarch sets of Elizabeth II contain mint coins, and those of 1970-1989 proof or mint coins.
The Royal Mint : The history of the British Royal Mint itself can be traced back more than a thousand years there being an unbroken link from the scattered workshops of the moneyers of Anglo-Saxon London to a single mint within the Tower of London to purpose-built premises at Tower Hill and finally to the huge modern coining plant in South Wales. The site chosen to re-locate the Mint was on nearby Tower Hill, in an area recently occupied by tobacco warehouses, and much earlier by the great Cistercian Abbey of St Mary of Graces. Preliminary work began in 1805, the buildings were finished by the end of 1809, and the state of art machinery was given a trial run in April 1810. During 1811 the transfer from the Tower was largely completed though it was August 1812 before the keys of the old Mint were finally delivered to the Constable of the Tower. The new Mint, with its 'stupendous and beautiful' machinery, stood in sharp contrast to the old. The main building, designed by James Johnson and completed by Robert Smirke, achieved 'modest grandeur'. It was flanked by two gatehouses, while behind it, and separated from it by an open quadrangle, were the buildings housing the machinery. There were dwelling houses for officers and staff, and the site was surrounded by a boundary wall, along the inside of which ran a narrow alley. Patrolled by soldiers from the Mint's military guard, this alley became known as the Military Way. In the 1880's the factory buildings were reconstructed and extended, with new coining presses being installed and melting and rolling capacity increased. Further rebuilding was undertaken at the turn of the century; steam gave way to electricity; dwellings were taken over; and the work of construction and renovation became a continuous process as the Mint endeavoured to cope with an enormous increase in the demand for coinage at home and abroad. By the 1960s little of the original mint remained, apart from the dignified Smirke building and its gatehouse in the front.