The Perth Mint

The stunning heritage-listed building holds treasure including rare coins, exclusive jewellery and gold and silver nuggets. The green doors of The Perth Mint opened in 1899 as the third Australian branch of Britain’s Royal Mint. Originally our purpose was to refine the gold discovered in Western Australia’s goldfields and turn it into bullion bars and sovereign coins for use throughout the British Empire and beyond. Over the next three decades we produced more than 106 million sovereigns and 735000 half sovereigns from Western Australian gold. Between 1940 and 1984, our minting skills were employed on large scale production of Australian circulating coins. In total, an impressive 438 million pennies, 256 million half-pennies and 1.3 million shillings, together with 855 million decimal 1 cent and 2 cent pieces was created on the coin presses. Discover the stories of Western Australia’s gold rush, the foundation of our heritage building, and witness a live gold pour in the original Melting House. By the time of The Perth Mint’s construction, income from gold was responsible for nearly 90 percent of the colony’s wealth. The Mint operated under British control until 1970, when ownership was transferred to the Western Australian Government.