Decline
In later years, the plant became increasingly busy with the introduction of the Euro within the European Union; the mint produced several million €1 and €2 coins. However, a slump in trade and contractual agreements between them and the Royal Mint resulted in the sale of the mint in late 2003. The Mint was acquired by JFT Law & Co Limited who still produce and sell commemorative coins and medals from a website. Substantial parts of the plant and machinery were subsequently purchased by an Indian company, Lord's Security Mint Limited. The Pobjoy Mint purchased the newest high speed presses plus new tooling.
Most of the complex, excluding the Icknield Street block and the rear, retaining, wall, was demolished in April 2007. The façade is grade II listed.
Read more about this topic: Birmingham Mint
Famous quotes containing the word decline:
“Or else I thought her supernatural;
As though a sterner eye looked through her eye
On this foul world in its decline and fall,
On gangling stocks grown great, great stocks run dry,
Ancestral pearls all pitched into a sty,
Heroic reverie mocked by clown and knave....”
—William Butler Yeats (18651939)
“The decline of the aperitif may well be one of the most depressing phenomena of our time.”
—Luis Buñuel (19001983)
“We have our little theory on all human and divine things. Poetry, the workings of genius itself, which, in all times, with one or another meaning, has been called Inspiration, and held to be mysterious and inscrutable, is no longer without its scientific exposition. The building of the lofty rhyme is like any other masonry or bricklaying: we have theories of its rise, height, decline and fallwhich latter, it would seem, is now near, among all people.”
—Thomas Carlyle (17951881)