About a year ago the director of the Royal Dutch Mint (KNM), mintmaster Maarten Brouwer, resigned - primarily due to a failed deal with peso coins that the KNM was supposed to produce for Chile. The mint had been in trouble before, mostly because fewer Dutch circulation coins are needed. In 2014 the KNM had a roughly €40 turnover, and a €11 loss. The Chilean peso job, about the production of 850 million coins, could have helped - but apparently many mistakes were made (oxidation, faulty packaging, etc.), and inspection cost in Chile added to the bill. On 1 Dec 2015 Kees Bruinsma became Brouwer's interim successor; a few months later the Dutch government decided to sell the mint. On Tuesday the Belgian Heylen Group and the KNM announced that Heylen will buy the mint. (Short English version of the press release.) They get a three-year contract; after that there will be a new tender. The building, the historic Muntgebouw, will be sold separately. The southern neighbor has similar plans, maybe even a little more drastic. The Belgian Mint (KMB/MRB) intends to cease the production of coins by the end of next year. (Article in Dutch.) As from January 2018, the mint will focus on design and marketing while the production would be done elsewhere. The mint in Utrecht, NL currently has 90 employees; quite a few had been laid off before. In Brussels, BE the number of full time workers is 25. Belgium also plans to follow the example of other euro countries where the production of paper money is not a task of the central bank. That could happen around 2020. The neighbors in France and Germany have no such plans by the way. The French Mint (Monnaie de Paris) continues to design coins in Paris, and to produce them in Pessac near Bordeaux. And in Germany the mints are state (not federal) operations, so there still are four mints and five minting locations ... Christian
Twenty years ago the Dutch mint was a very cool place to visit, it was apparently a slow day there so the mintmaster came out and took me on a tour of the mint and I even got to strike and buy a guilder. Utrecht is a very nice city to visit, and I combined my trip there with a visit to the Nederlands Spoorwegen Museum, the train museum in the Netherlands. The city has a lot of outdoor cafes etc and was very enjoyable.
Wow, great! When I went to the KNM, it was always for a Dag van de Munt (Open Mint Day), and the place was packed. Yes, Utrecht is certainly worth a visit - great mix of medieval and modern (Amsterdam School, De Stijl) architecture, and a nice atmosphere. Unfortunately the Money Museum (in the same building as the mint) never really "worked". It was founded in 2007 as a combination of the former Mint Museum, the Penningkabinet Leiden, and the central bank's museum, but closed in 2013. And the Numismatic Collection (NNC) that replaced it cannot be visited ... The Dutch government provides some information about the sale of the mint to Heylen (in Dutch) here, and in this PDF file. Christian
Coins have been minted in Utrecht since, oh, about a thousand years ago. That was a city mint first. (Strictly speaking, Utrecht is not Holland. The city is in the province of Utrecht; North and South Holland are two different provinces of the Netherlands.) One starting point could be 936 when Utrecht got the right to mint coins. Another important date is 1567 when Philip II of Spain opened a royal mint in the city. See here (Dutch; there is also a less detailed English version). In 1806, when coins for the Kingdom were to replace the provincial coinage, Utrecht was picked as the minting location. Apparently the facility was technically well equipped. Later the Rijksmunt became the Nederlandse Munt, and it got the additional term "Royal" (Koninklijke N.M.) in 1999. And well, it will not cease to exist - just like the Polish Mint for example, it will simply not be a government operation or state owned company any more ... Christian
It can be by certain people Darek, (goldducat), was not only allowed to visit he was allowed to photograph the collection and mint archive documents for continued work on the books
