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Perth’s
Venerable Gold Mint
Gold.
There are few nations or peoples in the world today who have
not, at one point or another in their history, not been affected
by mankind’s hunger for the yellow metal. Wars have been fought,
peoples enslaved and nations destroyed in the name of gold. In Australia,
the quest for the mother lode indirectly led to the formation of
the state of Western Australia, and the building of the Perth
Royal Mint, the first and most respected institution of its
kind on the continent.
In the beginning
Western Australia was,
and remains, a formidable land, with its expanses of rocky desert
and never-ending coast. The first settlers came in the days when
the nation of Australia didn’t exist, and the States were simply
far-flung colonies dedicated to enriching the mother country, Britain.
The harsh landscape and isolation were difficult barriers to overcome:
in 1880, the population of the entire state was a meagre 48,000.
The numbers only began to grow significantly in the late 1890s,
when the first gold strike in that inhospitable landscape precipitated
a gold rush and brought settlers whose frenzied hopes and determination
were barely enough to conquer the land.
The influx of gold-seekers
was a massive strain on the colony’s resources, and among the most
pressing concerns: money. With a sudden increase in the population,
there was too little paper currency circulating, and the miners
and diggers who brought back the precious gold often found that
no one had enough money to pay him for it. The miners were placed
in the awkward position of having gold that couldn’t be bought,
and no money to buy the goods and services they needed.
Sir John Forrest, the
Premier of Western Australia of the time, solved the problem in
the simplest way possible: he requested the British government to
establish a branch of the Royal Mint in Perth, which could then
take the gold from the miners to mint and coin them into acceptable
British sovereigns for use as currency in the colony. Wisely, they
agreed.
George T. Poole, a prominent
and respected architect, designed the building and the foundation
stone of the Perth Mint was laid in 1896. Its thick limestone walls,
designed for security, were quarried from nearby Rottnest Island.
It cost 58,000 pounds to build, a vast sum in those days and equivalent
to about AUS7 million today. The building has since been entered
in the state register of historical buildings.
All about Gold
The amount of precious
metals that passed through the mint is mind-boggling. In its first
100 years of operation, the Mint's gold output was 4,500 tonnes,
which would have formed a solid gold cube measuring some six metres
on each side.
By 1931, when the use
of gold coins was ended, the Perth Mint had issued over 106 million
British sovereigns and nearly 735,000 half-sovereigns, identical
to the coinage produced by other Royal Mints around the world.
From November 1986 to
the end of June 2001, The Perth Mint used more than 135 tonnes of
gold, 305 tonnes of silver and 18 tonnes of platinum to produce
its coinage, three-quarters of which are sold overseas.
There are also a number
of attractions that would entertain those less awed by its historical
or numismatic heritage. The most visible attraction is the Mint’s
glittering collection of natural gold nuggets, including the largest
in the world, the 369-ounce ‘Golden Beauty’.
For a live demonstration
of the minting process, visitors can go to the Melthouse, where
bullion bars and coins are produced in minutes. For more intimate
contact with the yellow metal, visitors are welcome to try and pick
up a bar of gold weighing 400 oz. The Mint also offers gold jewellery,
personalized coins and medallions, and other attractive souvenirs.
As the years passed,
the Perth Mint has endured, despite changes within the global gold
industry, the petering out of the goldfields in Western Australia,
and the closure of its sister mints in Sydney and Melbourne. The
Perth Mint has adapted to the changes and remains one of the foremost
gold institutions in the world.
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