A Visit to Royal Mint Canberra, Australia

I am giving you the details of our trip to the Royal Mint of Australia on Sunday, January 28, as we wanted to see how coins are minted and come into circulation. Incidentally, the Mint authorities had announced a temporary closure of the facility for the next few months for renovation purposes.

My wife took a photo at the front gate. In turn, I took a photo when she was taking that photo. So we headed to the reception and showed them our tickets that we had already booked in advance.

We had booked a guide that allows a group of 20 people or more and we were lucky there were more than 20 since the Mint had a plant close from 29 January 2024, as they were getting ready to freshen up for their 60th birthday.

So we reached to the mint that is situated close to our house about 6 km away in Canberra. We parked our car and reached just in time as we were booked for 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. slot. The lovely guide was standing right at the reception.

It's still closed but they are planning to reopen in Spring 2024 with new galleries, a new shop and improved amenities. For the time being they are relocating their Coin Shop to Canberra Museum & Gallery.

First of all, she gave us a briefing about how the banks determine how many coins need to be issued and how many other countries this mint caters to. Incidentally, The Australian Mint serves a few other countries that have no such facilities.

She also told us how the number of coins minted varies year on year but all the coins go directly to the banks first.

Later these coins reach our pockets and wallets but I see most of the coins reach the supermarket trolleys, parking meters, and piggy banks of kids as the circulation of banknotes and coins is at the minimum in Australia as most people pay digitally.

And then banks remove coins from circulation when they are damaged so a few coins need to be minted and recycled again.

The Royal Australian Mint offers special coins to the visitors starting at the price of $2 each and I minted two of them my own. They come in different denominations but we spent $4 only as a Savonnerie for collection purpose.

A final word about this mint, it opened in the Australian Capital Canberra in 1965 to produce coins and especially for a changeover from British imperial pounds, shillings and pence to Australia's own decimal dollars and cents.

For your ready reference, Australia's coins were introduced in 1966 because before that this country still used the British coins.

Note: This was a Sunday so no minting was in progress.
*Images all mine