London and Llantrisant 1965-1970

[Mr T]

I saw someone on Coin Community recently say that an old Coin Monthly had something about the different rim width 1967 halfpennies being struck at different mints. Would anyone happen to remember that article?

And more broadly, are there any other articles that mentioned what was struck at the two mints and when? I've always taken the simplistic approach that all the predecimal stuff was probably struck at London, but what I saw now has me wondering if maybe the 1970 proof varieties are down to the two mints as well.

[AardHawk]

Coin production didnt start in south Wales (Bridegend & Llantrisant) until 1968.

The best place to see the production details is Royal Mint Report of the Deputy Master and Comptroller. Idont have a copy of the 99th report for 1968 but the details were given the Coins and Medals Nov 1969 editorial;

The 1969 royal report;

 

[AardHawk]

[AardHawk]

[Peckris 2]

17 hours ago, Mr T said:

I saw someone on Coin Community recently say that an old Coin Monthly had something about the different rim width 1967 halfpennies being struck at different mints. Would anyone happen to remember that article?

And more broadly, are there any other articles that mentioned what was struck at the two mints and when? I've always taken the simplistic approach that all the predecimal stuff was probably struck at London, but what I saw now has me wondering if maybe the 1970 proof varieties are down to the two mints as well.

The 1970 proofs weren't struck until after D Day and possibly quite a bit after that? It's quite possible that 2 Mints were therefore used, though given the numbers involved I'd have thought that was extremely inefficient. As for the '1968 halfpenny', that used obverse dies from 1956 so maybe they were using old dies in London prior to demonetisation?

[Mr T]

On 1/27/2021 at 1:14 AM, AardHawk said:

Coin production didnt start in south Wales (Bridegend & Llantrisant) until 1968.

The best place to see the production details is Royal Mint Report of the Deputy Master and Comptroller. Idont have a copy of the 99th report for 1968 but the details were given the Coins and Medals Nov 1969 editorial;

Oh great, thanks for the information!

I don't know, I would have thought using two mints was inefficient, though it was 750,000+ sets from memory which is high even by today's standards.

[mick1271]

21 hours ago, Peckris 2 said:

The 1970 proofs weren't struck until after D Day and possibly quite a bit after that? It's quite possible that 2 Mints were therefore used, though given the numbers involved I'd have thought that was extremely inefficient. As for the '1968 halfpenny', that used obverse dies from 1956 so maybe they were using old dies in London prior to demonetisation?

I had a 1974 or possibly 75 proof set with a flyer from the mint advertising the 1970 proof set for sale . So they were still selling ,if not minting them a few years later .I am sure I read somewhere that they started minting them after the 1971 proof set was issued , and kept minting them while demand lasted . 

[copper123]

1 minute ago, mick1271 said:

I had a 1974 or possibly 75 proof set with a flyer from the mint advertising the 1970 proof set for sale . So they were still selling ,if not minting them a few years later .I am sure I read somewhere that they started minting them after the 1971 proof set was issued , and kept minting them while demand lasted . 

not like the royal mint that selling to all and sundry

[Peckris 2]

2 hours ago, mick1271 said:

I had a 1974 or possibly 75 proof set with a flyer from the mint advertising the 1970 proof set for sale . So they were still selling ,if not minting them a few years later .I am sure I read somewhere that they started minting them after the 1971 proof set was issued , and kept minting them while demand lasted . 

Yes - I think the sequence was probably: 1971, 1972, 1970... then a gap before 1973 - 1976 were issued more or less all together?

[1949threepence]

3 hours ago, mick1271 said:

I had a 1974 or possibly 75 proof set with a flyer from the mint advertising the 1970 proof set for sale . So they were still selling ,if not minting them a few years later .I am sure I read somewhere that they started minting them after the 1971 proof set was issued , and kept minting them while demand lasted . 

I thought I read somewhere that they didn't release the 1972 to 1975 sets until 1976?

Might have imagined it though.  

[copper123]

14 hours ago, 1949threepence said:

I thought I read somewhere that they didn't release the 1972 to 1975 sets until 1976?

Might have imagined it though.  

Coin monthly April 76 has an ad in for 1972 set £6.75 (Includes the crown)1973 ,1974 and 1975 and 1976 all at £5.25

[Peckris 2]

I might be wrong about the 1972 set then - Coin Monthly adverts pre-76 would confirm.

[Mr T]

Hm, I have a couple of Australian Coin Reviews that have Royal Mint reports in them (1973/74 and 1975/76) so I might need to dig them out.

Anyone know if Coin Monthly had annual reports from 1968 to 1975?

[Mr T]

So the Australian Coin Reviews I dug up say a few bits and pieces were struck in London in 1973-1975 but by then, 1970 proof set production was happening at Llantrisant.

[AardHawk]

On 1/31/2021 at 11:23 AM, Mr T said:

So the Australian Coin Reviews I dug up say a few bits and pieces were struck in London in 1973-1975 but by then, 1970 proof set production was happening at Llantrisant.

Exactly what information are you after? Is it annual production numbers for 1970 Lsd proof sets?

[Peckris 2]

I can imagine Llantrisant must have had a lot of spare capacity from 1972 on, given the much lower requirements for currency decimals. I am surprised that the 1970 sets weren't struck by London though.

[Mr T]

On 2/1/2021 at 9:40 PM, AardHawk said:

Exactly what information are you after? Is it annual production numbers for 1970 Lsd proof sets?

Yeah I'm looking for who struck how many sets in each year.

So far I found that 74,293 sets were struck at Llantrisant in 1973-1974 and that apparently took the total to 730,610 (so presumably another ~25,000 were struck in 1974-1975).

I imagine the previous ~656,000 were struck both at London and Llantrisant from 1970 (or maybe even 1969 onwards).

 

I got the 1973-1974 mintage from the August 1976 Australian Coin Review but I don't think previous issues have all Royal Mint reports unfortunately.

 

And it seems like London was definitely being wound down by that point - I need to re-read A New History of the Royal Mint to see exactly what was happening...

Edited February 3, 2021 by Mr T

[Peckris 2]

There's a mid-70s medallion commemorating the London Mint, so that might have been around its demise?

[AardHawk]

I extracted the following date from the listed reports.

[Mr T]

Yeah the Royal Mint in London definitively shut its doors in... 1976 I assume - the last coin was struck in November 1975.

On 2/4/2021 at 4:34 PM, AardHawk said:

I extracted the following date from the listed reports.

Great, thanks @AardHawk - much appreciated!