Trial of the Pyx is a quality control assessment of Royal Mint products. It’s held annually by the government with characteristic British pomp and ceremony. Several thousand coins are handled by committee members for inspection, and some are subjected to metallic assay. The coins are circulation and commemorative issues and include some patterns. “Pyx” is an old word referring to wooden boxes that hold coins. This year Stack’s Bowers is auctioning many of the Pyx coins. The auctioned coins are in NGC holders. However, they are graded only as “uncirculated” with no numbers. If you look at videos of committee members handling the coins, you’ll understand why. The members wear gloves but that’s it for truly careful handling. Makes me cringe to see them chucking newly minted coins into sorting bowls. So, if you’re interested, look at the coins really closely. Many have lots of nicks and dings. Some are near prefect. Some may be really good buys for their condition. Most of them will only be rare by way of the NGC slab that states they’re Pyx coins. If you crack them out, they’ll be indistinguishable from others of their type. Cal
The rarity of some pieces may be helpful in the future, given the pyx trial requires a fixed amount of output to be set aside. If you only have a low mintage allowing for one or two pieces in the trial, it has to be rare. Historically, sometimes the mintage was too low to reach the minimum amount for a valid trial. In the case of those listed on ebay, the 2019 £100 gold one ounce Britannia was only issued in sets and had a mintage of 150. With this being 1 of 6 pieces in the trial, clearly one piece in 25 was set aside, which puts things in perspective. And if they did the job right, at least one should have been melted and assayed. But I suspect marketing might have had something to say about that.............
The United States mint uses a pyx box as well. It goes from the coiner to the assay department and has two keys, the cashier's and coiner's. I'd think the Royal Mint's would be done similarly. Either way, I don't think quality control is ever in mind so the nicks and dings would be expected. Why would they if they're only used to verify weights and standards? But yeah, I'd be interested if proper documentation were included.
