UK holds ceremony replete with tradition to consider coins

LONDON (AP) — A jury sat solemnly in a gilded hall in central London on Tuesday, presided over by a bewigged representative of the crown in flowing black robes, but there were no criminals in the dock.

Britain’s coinage was on trial.

In a ceremony that dates back to the 12th century, the jury filed into the livery hall of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths to begin the process of weighing and measuring hundreds of coins to ensure they meet stringent standards set by regulators.

The tradition — known as the Trial of the Pyx — amounts to a very old type of consumer protection designed to safeguard the nation’s coinage from counterfeiting or other forms of debasement.