20 gram Perth Mint Kangaroo gold bar

History

Australian Kangaroo

Kangaroos are only found in Australia, these unique animals have gait and movement unlike any other animal in the world. The red kangaroo, depicted on Perth Mint's coins and bars, is the largest of all kangaroos, the largest terrestrial mammal native to Australia, and the largest extant marsupial. They hop across Australia on large, powerful legs, and use an oversized, muscular tail to help balance their bodies. They are found across mainland Australia, avoiding only the more fertile areas in the south, the east coast, and the northern rainforests.

Kangaroos were first depicted on the coin in 1989 when the Perth Mint released their Gold Nugget coin in new design and changed its name to Kangaroo. Besides being depicted on the Australian Kangaroo coins and bars, the kangaroo appears as an emblem on Australia’s coats of arms.

Minted  bars  refer  to  the  manufacturing  process  that  is  applied  to  create  them.  The  process begins  by  heating  gold  material  in  a furnace  until it  turns  to  a  molten  slurry.  During  the heating process, all unwanted impurities in the slurry are removed until only molten gold of high purity is left, most often at around 99.99%. The molten gold is then poured into moulds, usually in the shape of large bars, where it cools and solidifies. The solid gold is then inserted into  a  mill  that  rolls  the  gold  into  panels  with  a uniform  dimension.  Afterwards, the  gold panels are inserted into a blanking press that punches blanks out of the gold panels. The next step  involves  the  weighing  of  each gold  blank  to  ensure  that  it  is  neither  underweight  nor overweight and those that pass this test are then polished for them to obtain a shiny surface. The  last stage  involves the  minting  process where the  gold  blank  is  inserted into a  minting press  that  presses  its  die with  huge  force  to transfer  the  design  from  the  die  onto  the  gold blank. The result is a  minted bar. The newly  minted gold bar is then inspected before being sealed in a transparent tamper-proof protective package.

The Perth Mint is a world distinguished mint and precious metals refiner that is located in the City of Perth, in Western Australia. The Perth Mint was founded in 1896 by Britain’s Royal Mint in response to the newly discovered gold deposits in Western Australia. Perth Mint’s task was to refine gold ore from the mines and to strike sovereign gold coins from the refined bullion. Between 1899 and 1931 the Pert Mint produced  a considerable amount of gold sovereigns which were disturbed in Australia  and throughout the British Empire to be used as circulating currency. British control over Perth Mint was relinquished in 1971 to the Government of Western Australia which then assumed ownership of  the  mint.  Today,  the  Perth  Mint  is  hailed  for  the exceptional  quality  of  its  world  class investment bullion coins like the Kookaburra and Koala silver coins, and the Lunar Series. The Perth Mint has been a member of the London Gold Market (predecessor of the LBMA) since 1934. The swan design, which is the Mint’s official assay stamp registered with the LBMA, is recognised internationally and was inspired by the Mint’s location in Perth, where the main river, the Swan, runs through the city.