In an era when Fiat currencies are being printed indiscriminately leading to debasement of the currency itself it is satisfying to note that the worlds longest running consumer protection policy is still in place, to ensure the Great Britain’s physical coinage meets exacting requirements. Since 1282 our coins have been measured against the worlds most exacting standards  in the trial of the Pyx, which has taken place every single year, including in 1940 when a German bomb, just two days before, destroyed a large portion of the Goldsmith’s Hall. For the 728^th time the trial was conducted on the second Tuesday in February of this year in the Hall of the Worshipful company of Goldsmiths.

Goldsmiths Hall

The term Pyx is from the ancient Greek and refers to the boxwood chest in which the coins are placed for presentation to the Jury. Unlike many quaint customs in the UK this is legally binding procedure and is a trail in the true sense presided over by a judge with an expert jury of assayers. The Judge is the Queen’s Remembrancer which is oldest judicial position in continuance existence created by King Henry II in 1154. The jury is composed of at least six assayers from the Company of Goldsmiths. They have two months to test the provided coins, and decide whether they have been properly minted. Criteria are given for diameter, chemical composition and weight for each class of coinage. The verdict has to be reported in writing and signed by the Jury.

The benchmark against which the coins are measured is known as the Trial Plate, and these were kept under the personal guard of the Monarch, in the Exchequer. The earliest surviving Trial Plate is stored in the Royal Mint, and dates from 1279.

Trial Plates are still used today – although they are managed by the National Weights and Measures Laboratory – who send a representative to the Trial to deliver them to the Court.

Coins to be tested are drawn from the regular production of the Royal Mint. The Deputy Master of the Mint must, throughout the year, randomly select several thousand sample coins and place them aside for the Trial. These must be in a certain fixed proportion to the number of coins produced

The first phase of the Trial is the counting and weighing of coins brought to the hall in the Pyx boxes. Throughout the year, one coin from every single batch minted by the Royal Mint is set aside and put in sealed bags, each containing 50 coins. These bags are placed in the Pyx boxes for the Trial.  In a normal year of production in excess of 60,000 coins would be counted although the jury would only count about 1/10^th of them with the remainder counted by machines in a side room.

The Jury member opens the packet and selects a coin at random and puts it in the copper bowl and the remaining 49 coins in the wooden bowl. This wooden bowl is later weighed to check that the coins are the correct weight. The copper bowl will be taken away once the event is over, and the coins in that will be handed over to the Assay Office who will, over the next couple of months carry out detailed tests to confirm that the metallic content is as it should be.

Queen's Remembrancer

The verdict of the Jury is delivered to the Queen’s Remembrancer in May in the presence of the Master of the Mint, or his Deputy.  For those interested a copy of the verdict from the 2009 trial can be found on this link http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/pyx_2009.pdf. Our Interest is in Gold coins and you will see in the verdict how they were weighed, melted, assayed and compared with the standard gold plate within the prescribed tolerances.

Maurice Hall

Tags: Gold coins, History, Money

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 13th, 2010 at 11:15 am and is filed under Gold coins, Great Britain, History, Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.