Why did the money taken originally for my purchase reappear in my account and appear to be taken again?

When you place an order with us, we carry out a process of authorisation against your credit or debit card to ensure that the payment can be made and your purchase is valid. When this authorisation is successful we communicate with the credit or debit card provider and they mark the funds in your account against the transaction. At this point your money is allocated to the purchase and isn't passed onto The Royal Mint until we have deposited the transaction.