WEBSITE INFORMATION

We’ve just teamed up with Australia Post to make it easier and more convenient for individuals in Australian to complete the identification check when they register to buy on www.perthmintbullion.com.

Until now, all customers have been required to send us certified copies of original ID documents. This happens because under Australian law, The Perth Mint is required to be able to appropriately identify customers of bullion products.

Thanks to the new streamlined process, customers can now drop into any one of 3,200 participating Australia Post outlets around the country to complete the checks in person in just a few minutes.

You’ll need to provide one primary ID document (such as your Australian Driver Licence or Australian Passport) and in some cases one secondary ID. document showing your residential address (for example a recent utility bill).

You’ll also need to present the completed Australia Post Identity Verification Form (which you can print at the end of the registration process on www.perthmintbullion.com).

The Australia Post’s ID service is free and will save both time and hassle organising certified copies of your ID. documents.

For further information and where to find your nearest participating Australia Post outlet, click here.

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HISTORY AND HERITAGE

Prime Minister Bob Hawke launched Australian Nugget gold bullion coins just a few days after Easter in 1987.

The West Australian newspaper reported that Mr Hawke wrote out a $1,236 personal cheque to secure a mint set of the new coins!

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The launch marked Australia’s official entry into the international gold bullion coin market. The Nugget “taps into the romance and nostalgia of the Australian gold rushes” and celebrates “the resurgence of Australia as one of the top four gold producing countries,” The Perth Mint announced.

The coins were offered in four sizes containing 1oz, 1/2oz, 1/4oz and 1/10oz of 99.99% pure gold. Each coin featured a different reverse portraying a famous Australian natural nugget.  

The four portrayals were created by Australian-born Stuart Devlin, who was described by London’s Investor’s Chronicle as “arguably the greatest living goldsmith”. He’d previously designed Australia’s decimal coinage.

The fascinating stories of prospecting behind the designs were enthusiastically proclaimed by the Mint:

1oz - Welcome Stranger

The Welcome Stranger is the largest gold nugget ever found. It weighed 2,284 ounces and was unearthed in 1869 in Moliagul, Victoria, by John Deason and Richard Oates. They found their hidden treasure at the base of a tree, just ten inches below the ground. Not surprisingly their discovery sparked another gold rush to the area.

1/2oz - Hand of Faith

The Hand of Faith is the largest nugget discovered using a metal detector. It weighed 720 ounces (later corrected to 874 ounces) and was found in 1980 near Wedderburn, Victoria by the Hillier family. They unearthed the nugget, valued at $1million, behind the local church. This factor, along with the family’s religious leanings, was the reason for its name.

1/4oz – Golden Eagle

The Golden Eagle is the largest nugget found in Australia this century. It weighed 1,235 ounces and was discovered 18 inches below the surface near Larkinville, Western Australia in 1931 by James Larcombe and his son. Other prospectors working the area heard their shouts and it is said they thought the Larcombes were carrying a dead eagle. Certainly the resemblance is undeniable and the nugget was aptly named.

1/10oz – Little Hero

The Little Hero was the first of a series of large nuggets discovered in Western Australia in 1890. It weighed 333 ounces and was found on a much travelled track where it had been ignored by hundreds of men who thought it was simply a piece of ironstone. The find, for prospector Jack Doyle and his mates, was a happy ending to a story of treachery, an earlier discovery at Shark Gully having been lost to claimjumping by other prospectors.

Famous nuggets continued as the design theme for another two annual  issues. Inevitably, however, the number of noteworthy specimens grew thin. But The Perth Mint had already lined-up another iconic symbol for its official gold bullion series – the kangaroo.

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BULLION BARS AND COINS

The Perth Mint Refinery is reorganising and expanding its small silver bar manufacturing plant.

Work is progressing on schedule and we expect the new facility to come online during July.

Unfortunately, the switch-over means there will be a temporary reduction in our silver bar manufacturing capacity. As a result, it is likely there will be periodic stock-outs on www.perthmintbullion.com and in The Perth Mint Shop.

Restricted silver bar production in the next few months relates exclusively to the installation of new plant. Despite some comments, there is no shortage of silver affecting The Perth Mint.

By July we will have effectively doubled our manufacturing capacity, ensuring that we are able to meet the tremendous interest in our 10oz, 20oz, 1kg and 100oz cast silver bars.

Current arrangements for silver coin manufacturing are unaffected by works at the Refinery. Meanwhile, the new 1000-tonne automatic press for 1kg silver coins is being commissioned.

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WHAT OTHERS ARE THINKING

Before checking out what the coloured lines on this graph relate to, ask yourself which of these three bull markets is not in a bubble!

The graph is Frank Holmes’ “visual evidence” that the current gold price (yellow line) is not in a bubble.

“Bubbles require massive leverage,” he says, and there’s no evidence investors are borrowing to load up on gold.

For now, he says, gold is being driven by two factors: the “fear trade” (distrust of Federal Reserve policy in the West); and the “love” trade (the culture of giving gold as gifts in the East).

Read Addison Wiggin’s full report on The Daily Reckoning.

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QUICK GUIDE

The price of gold is a fix. And it’s been going on since 1919.

The establishment of the ‘fix’, a twice-daily gold industry ritual, took place under a post WWI agreement to sell South African gold in London.

The refined metal would then be sold through N.M. Rothschild “for the best price obtainable”.

The first ‘fix’ took place on 12th September that year. Five leading gold bullion traders and refiners met in a wood-panelled office at Rothschild’s City office where they agreed the official price of gold: £4.18s.9d per fine troy ounce.

These days, although the members have changed and they no longer meet face-to-face, the procedure remains remarkably similar.

Here’s a summary of how it works.

At 10.30am and 3pm, participants convene via a conference call. They each relay the chairman’s opening price to their respective dealing rooms. The price is adjusted up or down until the number of sellers matches the number of buyers. When the market is in balance (or near enough), the price of gold is ‘fixed’ in US dollars, Sterling and Euros.

The beauty of the London fix is that it gives central banks, miners, refiners and bullion dealers the ability to trade large quantities of gold at one transparent, undisputed price.

It plays another important role by providing an international benchmark for various physical gold and gold derivative exchanges which trade continuously throughout the world.

Unfortunately, however, the fix is inaccessible to ordinary bullion investors. For one thing, contracts must be settled in the form of 400toz London Good Delivery bars – around US$600,000 at today’s prices!

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GUEST BLOGGER: NEIL VANCE, PERTH MINT WHOLESALE MANAGER

Get ready for an announcement about the sell out of the 2011 1oz Australian Kookaburra silver bullion coin.

We now have wholesale commitments for the remaining mintage and are expecting to make final shipments shortly.

Traditionally, we have made 300,000 1oz Kookaburras annually. However, in response to extra expected demand, we announced an official mintage of 500,000 for the first time in 2011.

As recently reported, 1oz Lunar Rabbit silver bullion coins are officially sold out at the Mint. The only 1oz Lunar coin currently available is the 2008 Year of the Mouse release - although it is also getting close to sell out.

2011 silver bullion coins we’re currently making comprise:

•   1 kilo, 2oz, and 1/2oz Lunar Rabbits
•   1 kilo, 1oz and 1/2oz Koalas
•   1 kilo Kookaburras

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