Editing Trial of the Pyx (section)

== Procedure ==
Every year around February, the event begins with a meeting held in [[Goldsmiths' Hall]]. Attending the gathering are the Prime Warden of the [[Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths|Goldsmiths' Company]], three of their supporting Wardens, the Head of the Assay Office, [[Livery company#Liverymen|Liverymen]],<ref name=":0">{{cite news|last1=Greenhalgh|first1=Hugo|date=31 January 2017|title=Quality of Britain's coins tested as ancient Trial of the Pyx starts|work=[[Financial Times]]|url=https://www.ft.com/content/d5f04b6c-e7c0-11e6-967b-c88452263daf?mhq5j=e1|access-date=28 June 2017}}</ref> The Deputy Master of the Mint and the [[King's Remembrancer]]. The presiding judge is the King's Remembrancer (or Queen's Remembrancer when the sitting monarch is female), the [[Judiciary of England and Wales|Senior Master]] of the [[King's Bench Division|King's Bench]]. It is his or her responsibility to ensure that the trial be held in accordance with the law and to deliver the jury's final verdict to [[His Majesty's Treasury]]. Where and when a trial is to take place is at the Treasury's discretion, though there must be a trial in any year during which the [[Royal Mint]] issues coins.

Coins to be tested are drawn from the regular production of the Royal Mint. The Deputy Master of the Mint must, throughout the year, randomly select several thousand sample coins and place them aside for the Trial. These must be in a certain fixed proportion to the number of coins produced. For example, for every 5,000 bimetallic coins issued, one must be set aside, whereas for silver [[Maundy money]] the proportion is one in 150.

The jury is composed of at least six assayers from the Company of Goldsmiths. They have two months to test the provided coins, and decide whether they have been properly minted. Criteria are given for [[diameter]], [[chemical composition]] and weight for each class of coinage. Depending on the number of coins being assayed there are a varying number of jurors needed. Sitting along a table, the jurors are handed packets of up to 50 coins, by a Royal Mint official, which they must count. Each juror selects one coin from the pile, places it in a copper bowl and it is then sent to be assayed. The remaining coins are either sent to be weighed or weighed at the table. Smaller denomination coins that are more numerous are counted by machine.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Trial of the Pyx|url=https://www.thegoldsmiths.co.uk/company/today/trial-pyx/|access-date=28 June 2017|publisher=[[Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths|Goldsmiths' Company]]}}</ref>

At the company's [[The Goldsmiths' Company Assay Office|assay office]], the coins which were placed in the copper bowls are melted down and formed into plates where their [[fineness]] and weight can be compared against a corresponding trial plate which acts as a benchmark. After three months of testing, a ceremony presided over by the King's Remembrancer is held, when the final verdict is given. Attending the event and receiving the verdict under the capacity as [[Master of the Mint]] is the [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]] or her Deputy Master, the Chief Executive of the Royal Mint.<ref>{{cite web|title=The History of the Trial of the Pyx|url=http://www.royalmint.com/discover/uk-coins/history-of-the-trial-of-the-pyx|access-date=28 June 2017|publisher=[[Royal Mint]]}}</ref>

If the coinage is found to be substandard, the trial carries a punishment for the Master of the Mint of a fine, removal from office, or imprisonment. The last master of the mint to be punished was [[Isaac Newton]] in 1696,<ref name="FT-2023"/> though he later showed that the mistake originated in a faulty reference.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Desborough |first1=Jane |title=Isaac Newton and the Royal Mint |url=https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/isaac-newton-and-the-royal-mint/ |website=Science Museum |date=4 January 2020 |access-date=12 October 2023}}</ref>