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Perth’s Venerable Gold Mint
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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Article Information
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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.