Newsletter: July 2025
Welcome to the latest edition of the Royal Mint Museum Newsletter. Read on to find out what the Museum team have been working on this month.
The Secret Life of Coins Exhibition
This month we were delighted to open a new temporary exhibition, The Secret Life of Coins, at the Royal Mint Experience.
In it we explore the many and varied ways we use coins. Not just for spending or saving but for tossing at the start of a football match or carrying as a lucky charm - they are useful in all sorts of hidden ways. But beyond these modest functions, they are also charged with loftier tasks - conveying political messages, warding off disease, even keeping the nation’s most famous clock running on time.
From being specially struck for royal occasions, to ordinary coins used in extraordinary ways, click here to visit the Royal Mint Experience where you can see all this and more.
The Secret Life of Coins Podcast
Our podcast team has been busy preparing the second series of our podcast, The Secret Life of Coins, over the past few weeks. We would like to thank our interviewees for their time and expertise. We were extremely excited to talk to experts in their respective fields, and we cannot wait for everyone to hear all the interesting conversations and experiences that we had. For now, the team are back in the studio to finish recording before the job of editing begins.
Our first podcast series, Coins and the Sea, is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favourite shows. You can also find all six episodes, and our newly released bonus episodes, on our website here.
Reminiscence Box Feedback
The Museum team have completed a total of 1,620 Reminiscence Box loans to care homes, community groups, hospital wards and more. 1,184 of these loans were in different locations, and 436 were repeat loans. The feedback we receive always encourages the team and demonstrates the importance of this resource. We wanted to share a small selection of the feedback we received this month:
"One resident has dementia and not many memories, but the box helped bring some back and made them smile" Buckingham Care Home, South Yorkshire.
"We talked about pocket money, which prompted an in depth talk about comics, sweets and skipping ropes!" Haddon Hall Care Home, Derbyshire.
“Paul remembered working in the post office and sorting forms changing into decimalisation. Gwen said she remembers superstitions- turn over her money on a new moon….throwing a coin in a wishing well to make a wish.” Old Hasting House, East Sussex.
"One resident who doesn't really engage spoke about how he used to have a collection of coins" Clifton Manor Nursing Home, Nottingham.
You can find out more about our Borrow a Box project here
Appointment of Sir David Cannadine as Chair of the Board of Trustees
The Royal Mint Museum has appointed Sir David Cannadine as the Chair of the Board of Trustees. Sir David is Dodge Professor of History at Princeton University. He is the author of twenty books and editor of numerous volumes. His scholarly interests range across the economic, social, political and cultural history of modern Britain and its Empire and the United States.
He said “I am delighted to be taking on the role of Chair of the Royal Mint Museum. It is a particular honour to be picking up the baton from Andrew Burnett, one of the foremost figures in Britain’s museum community. I will look to build on the excellent leadership he provided and, working with the team who run the Museum, I will draw on all my experience to make the Museum’s future projects as successful and engaging as possible. It is a remarkable collection, global in its reach and full of potential for developing partnerships to bring an important aspect of our national life to a much wider audience’.
Dr Kevin Clancy, Museum Director, said, “Sir David Cannadine has been a defining presence for many years in Britain’s cultural and heritage organisations and we are thrilled that he has agreed to be Chair of our Board of Trustees. His involvement with our programmes will elevate the status of the Museum and I have no doubt that he will help to shape all we seek to achieve in the years ahead.”
More information can be found here