Western Australia – Day 11 – The Perth Mint

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Day 11 and our last day in Perth. Our flight was late in the night – the nice benefit of choosing Jetstar as our carrier again – which meant we had a full-day to explore a few more sights before we head to the airport for our return home to Singapore. We’ve already done Perth parks yesterday, so it was museum day after all today.

The Perth Mint is rated as the current fourth top Tripadvisor attraction in Perth. Pretty uncommon for a museum to be rated among the top most attractions in any city, and many of the reviews off the review site note now that the gold pouring demonstration is really special. So, a quick discussion after Day 11 breakfast, and we decided our plan would be to check out the Mint, then Scitech, and then finish off the day with the visit to my Ph.D supervisor from 15 years ago.

The most interesting visual experiences: I’ve had for a while the pouring of molten gold to create a gold bar. The actual demo is about 10 minutes long, with the actual pouring and cooling process taking no more than a few minutes. Our demonstrator and guide was Richard (or ‘Greg’ as he quipped if we didn’t like his demo haha).
The furnaces today at the mint are gas-operated and fuels the furnace to 1200 degree celsius, a little above the melting point of gold. Tongs are used to lift the melting pot (called the ‘crucible’) that is made out of graphite out fom the furnace.
The crucible contains 6.2kg of molten gold!
The liquid gold is poured into the iron cast molt (shaped as a gold bar).
Mesmerizing! The liquid gold was so bright against the darkness of the work bench that it’s amazing that the E-M1 was able to capture the pictures as well as it has done here.
The molden gold bar was so hot the the guide’s protective gloves.were aflame just by brushing the glove tips over the bar.
Gold cools very quickly, and after immersing the molten bar into a vat of room temperature water, it takes just minutes to cool from 1200 to about 25 degree celsius. This 6.2kg is worth AUD300K. Too bad it won’t be sold – this piece will be re-melted shortly for the next demo.
The world’s largest coin on display at the Perth Mint – weighing just over a ton of gold at 99.99% purity, and created in 2012 at the Mint.
It’s diameter is 80cm, and thickness is 12cm. The coin face value is AUD1 million, but at today’s gold price, is worth AUD58 million!
The Newmont Normandy Nugget, discovered in Kalgoorlie in 1995, and weighing 25.5kg
So -we will be almost millionaires if we ebayed Peter?!

To summarize: if you’re going to visit the Mint, the about 45 minute guided tour is a must – not just for the gold pouring demo, but also that the commentary on the gold rush of the 19th century, how the Mint start and what it does today is informative and very well-presented. The family admission price was AUD48, and the tours begin every hour, partially on account that it takes about 25 minutes for the gold bar to be re-melted and to be ready for the next tour.