Royal Canadian Mint Gold Processing and Minting (English)

the strongest competitor to the US for gold coins is Canada to see how gold coins are made we took our cameras to the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa there's some resemblance to the manufacturer of other coins but there are also major differences all the emphasis is on quality not quantity and it starts with the raw material Gold arrives at the mint from mines around the world in an impure form it must be refined which is a slow and a dangerous process first the gold is melted so that a sample can be taken and analyzed for impurities these ingots may contain anywhere from 10 to 70% other metal mostly silver to remove these impurities the ingots must be refined even further so the molten gold is infused with chlorine gas the fumes are poisonous and must be carefully vented away the chlorine causes the impurities to separate out and rise to the surface where they can be skinned off what remains is 99.5% pure gold it's a level of purity that many other mints around the world will never reach the mint demands even greater purity so they cast the gold in small flattened bars to prepare it for another level of refining parts of the refining process haven't changed much in centuries but others have that includes the next step electrolysis only a few mints in the world refine gold by electrolysis because it takes so long titanium plates must be lowered into a bath of acid the gold bars are hung next to the plates from hooks of gold when an electric current passes through the bath it causes the gold particles to migrate onto the plates the other metals will sink to the bottom it takes two days to complete the process but the crumb like layer that now coats these plates is 999.9 thousands pure gold some of this gold will be refined even further but most of it will be melted and cast into ingots to make coins and bullion bars some moisture still clings to the gold and it must be dried off otherwise the gold would explode in the furnace the melted gold is poured through a fireproof funnel into a mold inevitably some of the gold will splatter onto the floor when you walk through the refinery the floors are black there's a purpose for that if it shines and it's only for on the floor it's gold and it will be swept and it will be recycled golde this peeler is extremely heavy each ingot weighs 50 pounds the market value of gold changes daily on this day this ingot is worth a cool $240,000 the gold ingots must now be rolled into the thickness of a coin but the gold would shatter if they try to flatten it all at once so it will be sent through this rolling mill 12 times each time the ingot is compressed nearly ten percent as the gold gets thinner the pressure can be reduced 50 tons 40 tons thirty times the pressing has made the gold too hot to handle with bare hands by now the original 11 and a half inch long agent has been rolled out into a strip 12 feet long it's become too thin to be lifted up by hand but it's still too thick to make coins so must be pressed several more times both gold and Sioux are rolled on these mills to avoid contamination the machine must be washed down whenever the metal changes the gold is now approaching the right size for coin it must be precisely 2.8 seven millimeters thick give or take just a tenth of a millimeter now the gold can be stamped into blanks the blanks are now ready for the coining press even though gold is very soft the coins are large and the design is intricate so they must be struck at enormous pressure 133 tons that's more than twice the tonnage needed to strike a u.s. quarter limit makes less than 700 thousand of these gold coins annually this is the minced best-selling gold coin for one ounce gold Maple Leaf worth about three hundred dollars every single coin gets inspected after it leaves the press by every worker who handles the final check of the coins weight is done not by hand but at an automated workstation the process is much more efficient this wave any coin whose weight is off by more than just one and a half thousandths of an ounce will be rejected and remelted because the market in gold coins is so competitive every mint including the US Mint looks for ways to distinguish its products the Canadian Mint stresses the purity of its gold and it also makes innovations one of the minced most unusual products is a gold hologram coin the design is struck just a few microns deep and it scatters the light but ultimately it's not a gold coins design or purity that attracts a collector it's something more the collector wants perfection he's not buying an ounce of gold what he's buying is a work of art in itself that is on precious metal but he's buying a higher value than just the metal content and that higher value which ultimately is the finished coin has to be perfect

Channel: ccnadog

Views: 270,536

Rating: 4.7638693 out of 5

Keywords: Gold, Refining, Minting, processing, Royal Canadian Mint (Organization)

Id: AeGXYYoSO1U

Length: 9min 53sec (593 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 05 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/takin_2001]

"This is the mint's best selling gold coin, the one ounce gold Maple Leaf. Worth about $300"

_lol_

[u/L_Cranston_Shadow]

What step do they add the milk spotting at?