Mints of the World

The Perth Mint opened in 1899 in response to the discovery of rich gold deposits in Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie. It was Australia’s third branch of Britain’s Royal Mint - the others being the Sydney Mint and the Melbourne Mint (both closed).

Diggers, who flocked to the then colony of Western Australia in huge numbers from other parts of Australia and from around the world, deposited their raw gold at The Perth Mint where it was minted into gold coins.Between 1899 and 1931, The Perth Mint struck more than 106 million gold sovereigns and nearly 735,000 half-sovereigns for use as currency in Australia and throughout the British Empire.

The Perth Mint remained under Britain’s jurisdiction until 1 July 1970, when ownership transferred to the State Government of Western Australia. The change came at a fortuitous time, preceding by a few years the beginning of a new gold boom. With the price of gold rising dramatically, The Perth Mint became the focus of renewed interest and opportunity.

The Mint’s new direction was formalised in 1987 with the creation of Gold Corporation by a State Act of Parliament. Under a unique agreement with the Commonwealth of Australia’s Department of the Treasury, the Mint’s new operator was empowered to mint and market gold, silver and platinum Australian legal tender coinage to investors and collectors worldwide.

Today, The Perth Mint is a member of an elite group of world mints whose pure gold, silver and platinum legal tender coins are trusted without question. Like the Australian Nugget, its Australian Kookaburra Silver Coin Series and Australian Lunar Gold and Silver Coin Series are extensively sought after by bullion investors worldwide.

On January 2, 1908 as an audience of dignitaries looked on, Governor General Earl Grey activated the press to strike a fifty-cent piece, the Dominion’s first domestically produced coin. A few moments later, the Countess Grey closed the ceremony by striking Canada’s first bronze cent.

The Ottawa branch of Britain’s Royal Mint was officially open for business.

In 1931 the heritage building on Sussex Drive, the surrounding land and the entire minting enterprise passed into Canadian hands, making the Mint a wholly Canadian institution.

Today the Royal Canadian Mint is a for-profit Crown Corporation with a mandate to deliver a fair return on investment to its sole shareholder, the Government of Canada.

Coins for the world
The Mint produces all of Canada’s circulation coins as well as coinage for other nations. For its domestic and international clients, the Royal Canadian Mint designs and manufactures collector coins; gold and silver bullion coins; customized medals, tokens and trade dollars; fine watches, jewellery and gifts. The Mint also provides refinery and assay services to customers around the world.

His Royal Highness, The Duke of Edinburgh, officially opened the Royal Australian Mint, Canberra, on Monday 22nd February 1965. The Mint was commissioned to produce Australia’s decimal coinage, which was to be introduced into circulation on 14th February 1966. The Royal Australian Mint holds a place in history as the first mint in Australia not to be a branch of the Royal Mint, London.Since opening in 1965 the Mint has produced over eleven billion circulating coins and has the capacity to produce over two million coins per day, or over six hundred million coins per year.

The Royal Australian Mint has struck coins for a number of South Pacific nations. Export coins were first struck in 1969 for New Zealand and, since then, coins have been produced for Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Western Samoa, Cook Islands, Fiji, Malaysia, Thailand, Nepal, Bangladesh, Israel and Tokelau.

The Mint also manufactures medals, medallions, seals and tokens for private and public sectors and sporting and tourism groups, both nationally and internationally. Examples of these are The Order of Australia, Third Pacific Conference Games Medallions, Sydney Monorail token and Conrad Jupiter’s Casino tokens.

The Royal Mint is a department of government and its primary responsibility remains the provision of the United Kingdom coinage. Its reputation, however, extends beyond this and internationally it has a reputation for making some fascinating coins for over 100 countries.

The history of the Royal Mint itself stretches back over 1100 years. There is an unbroken link from the scattered workshops of the moneyers of Anglo-Saxon London to a single mint within the Tower of London, from a purpose-built premises at Tower Hill to the huge modern coining plant in South Wales.

In April 1975 the Mint was established as a Government Trading Fund, operationally very similar to a government-owned company. For many years over half its sales were shipped overseas and, in recognition, the Queen’s Award for Export Achievement was awarded on four separate occasions. In April 1990 the Royal Mint became an Executive Agency providing it with greater management freedom to develop its business further. Indeed the British Royal Mint has maintained its position as the world’s leading exporting Mint.

The minting of coins in Britain began in the first century BC, the earliest coins being crude imitations cast in moulds. This process gave way to striking coins using hand-held tools, the same technique by which coins would be struck for the next 1500 years. After the Roman Conquest the coinage of Iron Age Britain was brought to an end and thereafter large numbers of Roman coins circulated.

From the end of the third century AD some Roman coins were struck at a mint in London but for some 200 years after the Romans withdrew no coins appear to have been struck there. In 650AD, a London mint began operating, at first a little precariously but since the time of Alfred the Great (871-899) its history became continuous and increasingly important.

At the Royal Mint today, traditional skills are still used to create coins of the realm - skills that have been passed down from generation to generation.