The Royal Mint is one of the oldest institutions on earth, tracing its line of striking British coin back more than 1,100 years to the reign of Alfred the Great. For most of its history it operated from the Tower of London; in 1968 it moved to a modern facility at Llantrisant in South Wales, where it strikes circulating, commemorative and bullion coinage today.
Its most famous master was Sir Isaac Newton, Warden and then Master of the Mint from 1696, who fixed the price of gold in 1717 — effectively founding the gold standard. That heritage lends the modern Royal Mint unusual gravitas in the bullion world.
Today the Mint produces the Gold Britannia and the historic Gold Sovereign, both UK legal tender (and so exempt from Capital Gains Tax for British investors), alongside the Royal Tudor Beasts and Lunar series. Its anti-counterfeiting technology — latent images, micro-text and surface animation — is among the most advanced in the industry.