Royal Mint in Wales welcomes 200,000th visitor

Jayne Roden on Oct. 1 became the 200,000th visitor to the Royal Mint’s visitor center. She was there to celebrate her birthday (which was two days before).

All images courtesy of the Royal Mint.

A collector in the United Kingdom visited the Royal Mint Experience on Oct. 1 to celebrate her birthday, and received quite the gift. 

Jayne Roden of Wolverhampton found herself unwittingly at the center of a very special celebration when she became the 200,000th person to arrive for a factory tour at the Royal Mint’s award-winning tourist attraction, the Royal Mint Experience. 

Roden was visiting with her fiancee, Michael Carless, who decided to bring her there that day to celebrate her birthday (which was two days earlier). 

She had plans just to buy the new Paddington 50-penny coins, and to strike her own Frankenstein £2 coin on the first day it became available.

She went home with a prize pack reportedly valued at £1,000 ($1,300 U.S.). 

Located in Llantrisant, South Wales, the venue awarded unsuspecting Roden the “Freedom of the Royal Mint Experience” — a special family pass allowing free access for the next 200 days and a Royal Mint 5-gram gold bar from Royal Mint Bullion, the organization’s precious metal investment division. 

Other gifts included a special signed and framed print by Royal Mint coin designer Thomas Docherty.

The beginning of the tour, which included 17 other people besides Roden, Carless and this writer, was delayed a few minutes while David Stock, head of the Royal Mint Experience, presented the gift basket to Roden. 


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Stock said, in a press release, “We were delighted to welcome Jayne as our very special 200,000th visitor, who was here to celebrate her birthday and invite her to celebrate our milestone moment with us.”

That Coin World’s visit was timed with the milestone was a fortuitous collision of circumstance, following our attendance at COINEX in London the weekend before the Mint’s milestone.  

The Royal Mint Experience has recently been awarded Visit Wales’s prestigious Gold VAQAS Award for all around excellence, and has several events planned the remainder of 2018. 

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