The Perth Mint is the oldest mint still in production in Australia. Built in 1899, the original function was to cast the golden pound for the British Empire. Today's Perth Mint is part of the Western Australian government and is a professional mint that produces commemorative coins and investment coins for the international market. It is a world leader in the production and sale of precious metal coins, chapters, and collectibles.
The Perth Mint plant is a traditional building built in the 19th century. It has a classical and elegant appearance and is an award-winning tourist destination in Australia. The annual tourist flow exceeds 120,000. Historically, the Perth Mint has played a major role in the development of the gold industry in Western Australia. In the 19th century, the Royal London Mint set up three branch factories in the Australian colony, on the one hand to purify gold from the gold rushers and on the other to cast gold pounds and semi-pound sterling gold pounds for the British Empire. The Sydney branch went into production in 1855, the Melbourne branch in 1872, and the Perth branch in 1899, two years before the establishment of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901.
In the early 1980s, before the arrival of the gold rush, the total population of Western Australia was only 48,000. By 1900, this number had risen to 180,000. This sudden sudden increase in population has caused a shortage of resources. At that time, Perth had only a very small amount of money for the influx of gold panders to exchange the gold they found and to pay for the goods and services they needed.
Before 1901, Australia was not a unified country, but included many small, independent colonies. At the time, Western Australian Prime Minister Sir John Forster requested British authorities to establish a Royal Mint plant in Perth in order to purify the gold mined in the eastern Australian mining area, and at the same time to cast the gold into British Gold coins circulate in the colonies.
Sir Forester laid the foundation for the Perth Mint in 1896. The mint's designer was George Temple Poole of the then Public Service Department. He was a very good architect and designed many elegant colonial buildings.
Today, as an affirmation of the architect’s work, the Perth Mint is protected by the National Heritage Protection Organization and is also one of the first buildings to be listed on the National Heritage List. The symmetry and appearance features of the entire building structure were exemplary at the time, and its robustness also catered to the security needs of the mint to handle and store precious metals. The total cost of the Perth Mint was £58,000, which was a very impressive figure at the time, equivalent to today's $7,250,000.
The legal heritage value of the Perth Mint is much higher than its construction itself. When the Perth Mint was established as a branch of the London Royal Mint, the rights, obligations, privileges, and responsibilities granted to the Royal London Royal by the British royal family were passed on to the Perth Mint. . As a result, there was an inseparable link between the Perth Mint and the Royal London Mint.
The Perth Mint used to belong to the United Kingdom. After July 1, 1970, up till now, the Perth Mint is a statutory body of the Western Australian government. In the same era, both the Sydney Mint and the Melbourne Mint were reduced in gold due to eastern states. It has already stopped production.
After more than 100 years, the Perth Mint is still producing coins. It is one of the oldest mints in the world.
In its 100-year history, Perth Mint has purified 4,500 tons of gold, which accounted for 3.25% of all human gold production history. This gold can be cast into a cube about 6 meters long on each side. Since its establishment in 1899, the Perth Gold Refinery has been on the sea street east of Perth. In April 1990, the refinery was moved to a new site in Newborn, next to Perth International Airport.
In December 1998, Perth Mint and Golden West (Australasia) Pty Co., Ltd. jointly launched precious metal refining and precious metals industrial products business. It also established a joint venture with Australian Gold Refineries Joint Venture (AGR JV). The company's business is actually operated by Gold, and Perth owns 50% of its assets. ("Australasia" is an unclear geographical term, generally referring to Australia, New Zealand, and the nearby South Pacific islands, sometimes also referred to as Oceania and the Pacific Islands)
In August 2001, Golden West (Australasia) Pty Ltd sold its 50% stake in Australia's gold refining joint venture to Australian Gold Alliance Pty Ltd (AGA). The shareholders are all major gold producers.
The shareholders of the Perth Mint are gold-refined companies that have become trusted in the London bullion market. The gold produced by the Perth Mint is the purest gold tested by the Royal Bank of England. This means that the gold produced by the Perth Mint has a global quality of marketing. The stamps and markings of the Perth Mint on gold bars and silver bars are a guarantee of weight and purity.
Since 1928, the Perth Mint has quality assurance for the London testing standards, as well as quality coverage from the New York Mercantile Exchange and the Tokyo Commodity Exchange.
The Perth Mint plays an advisory role in the international coinage industry. Many large mints and refineries consult Perth, including the world's largest refiner, the South African Rand Refinery. plant. Into the 1920s, most of the gold produced in Western Australia was produced into 22 gold, and issued and circulated in the form of 1 gold pound and 1/2 gold pound, or as a government reserve.
At the time when circulation of gold coins ceased in 1931, the Perth Mint had issued 106 million gold pounds and nearly 735,000 1/2 gold pounds. Strictly speaking, these golden pounds cannot be regarded as Australian gold coins because they are exactly the same gold coins as the other British Mints.
Prior to 1984, Perth Mint produced a large number of Australian regular currency. Prior to the founding of Australia, the silver and copper coins circulating in Australia were also the legal currency of the United Kingdom. On January 1, 1901, the Commonwealth of Australia was established. Soon, Australia began to plan to cast its own legal tender currency. In 1909, the Australian Currency Act was proposed. In 1910, the first batch of Australian silver coins (Florin, Shilling, six pence silver, and three pence silver coins) was made available; in 1911, the first batch of Australian copper coins (1 pence, 1/2 pence) was launched.
Australia’s new currency was originally minted in England, Sydney and Melbourne, and was later minted in India. In 1922, Perth Mint coined a 1 pence coin for the first time. In 1931-1940, the Perth Mint stopped coinage; in 1942-64 Perth produced 1 penny and 1/2 pence coin on and off. As of 1964, Perth had produced 438 million pence, 256 million 1/2 pence, and 1.3 million shillings issued in 1946.
In 1964, Perth began to work on the production of copper coin molds, preparing for the implementation of tens of currencies in Australia in 1966. From 1968 to 1973, Perth stopped coinage again. After that, Perth continued to produce 10-year 2-point coins until 1983. As of 1983, Perth produced a total of 829 million 2-cent coins and 26 million 1-cent coins.
Today, all Australian currency coins were minted at the Australian Royal Mint in Canberra. In the mid-1980s, under the auspices of former Australian Prime Minister Brian Bork, the promotion of the economy was put on the agenda by the government. The Perth Mint became the implementing unit of the Australian precious metal coin program. Perth was internationally recognized as A professional foundry of precious metal coins. According to the agreement between Perth and the Commonwealth of Australia, the Perth Mint is responsible for producing and selling most of Australia's legal precious metal currencies that are in line with the Australian Currency Act. These common and refined coins include: Australian kangaroo gold coins, Australian koala platinum coins, and Australia Kookaburra silver coins.
The status of these currencies as national legal currencies enables them to trade in the international market. Because this status means that the country will guarantee their weight and purity.
According to statistics, from November 1986 to June 2001, the Perth Mint has cast 135 tons of gold, 305 tons of silver, and 18 tons of platinum into value-added precious metal coins in its new coinage era, of which 85% Sold abroad. This achievement makes Perth Mint consistently ranked in the list of top 30 foreign exchange companies in Australia.