Pobjoy Mint
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The Pobjoy Mint is Europe’s leading private Mint which produces legal tender commemorative and circulating coins, medals and tokens for Governments, Central Banks and major companies throughout the world from its premises in Surrey, England.
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[edit] History
The company has been concerned in a number of diverse fields and during World War II Pobjoy Aero Engineering was involved in the manufacture of Spitfire wings. The mint was founded in 1965 by Derek Pobjoy when he left his father, Ernest Pobjoy's, jewellery and masonic business and purchased his first coin press. The first major success was the production of a series of gold medals to commemorate the life of Sir Winston Churchill.
As manufacturers of gold chains, gilt and enamel badges and escutcheons, regalia and insignia of all kinds, the Pobjoy Mint has been contractor to the Crown Agents and prestigious London jewellers, for whom it has executed numerous commissions involving precious metals and gemstones of all kinds.
In 1996 Pobjoy Mint issued the world’s first hologram coin, the image is carefully struck in the coin to produce an unusual colour effect and in 1999 the world’s first titanium coin.
Recently, the mint has become involved in the production and international sale of new issue postage stamps and currently exclusively coordinates the coin and stamp programmes of three countries.
[edit] Numismatic developments
The Pobjoy Mint has revived many age-old numismatic customs but at the same time has been in the forefront of numismatic development. It developed the world's first satisfactory man-made precious metal, called Virenium, which has been successfully used in high denomination coinage since 1978 and has also developed coining equipment and the Noble, a bullion coin containing one ounce of pure platinum. Another developemnt, The Gold Angel has won the 'Best Gold Coin of the World' Award in the USA and is quoted daily by the Financial Times and Reuters. In 1988 the mint produced the first British Fine Gold 999.9, a coin which has now become Asia's best volume coin.
[edit] Countries and Governments
The Pobjoy Mint has struck commemorative, circulating and pattern coins for nearly 20% of the world’s governments and central banks including the Isle of Man, Ascension Islands, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bolivia, British Virgin Islands, Burundi, Cook Islands, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Falkland Islands, Gambia, Gibraltar, Kyrghyzstan, Liberia, Macau, Niue, Peru, Philippines, St Helena, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somaliland, South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands, Spain, Tanzania, Tokelau, Tonga, Tristan da Cunha, Uzbekistan, Western Samoa, Pitcairn Islands and Tajikistan as well as undertaking sub-contracted work for certain state mints. Many medallion issues have also been produced, notably for Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Arab States. The mint has produced sixty different medallions for the World Wide Fund for nature collection.
[edit] Awards
Since 1984 Pobjoy Mint has been presented with seventeen awards and other accolades including twelve Coin of the Year Awards, winner of the Queen’s Award for Export Achievement in 1990, the Vreneli-Preis which was awarded to Derek Pobjoy by Münzen-Revue for outstanding contribution to numismatics in 1993 and the ISO 9001 2000 quality mark which was awarded by BSI in recognition of the overall high standards of quality and customer service achieved by the mint.
