Former employee John Edwards at his old stomping ground. Photo: James Coleman.
There was no way John Edwards was going to miss this.
The Cootamundra resident made the two-hour drive to Canberra last Friday (28 February) to join a crowd of fellow so-called ‘minties’ on the lawns outside his old workplace, the Royal Australian Mint in Deakin
The national institution turns 60 this year, and Federal Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury Andrew Leigh was there to cut the celebratory cake, alongside Myf Warhurst, the voice actor of Aunt Trixie Heeler in Bluey.
After all, Ms Warhurst’s character appears on a $1 coin in a range of Bluey collectible coins recently put out by the Mint.
“I’ve got to say, I’m highly honoured,” she said.
“We grew up with these coins. They’re at the very heart of Australian culture and I get to appear on a coin now, albeit as a mock-up, in dog form. And I will take that.
“But that’s the best thing about Australian coins: you never know what you’re going to find.”
Bluey voice actor Myf Warhurst, Federal Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury Andrew Leigh, and Royal Australian Mint Acting CEO Emily Martin. Photo: James Coleman.
When Mr Edwards arrived for work in early 1971, the Mint pretty much stood alone in a sheep paddock, and was only a short walk from his home in Curtin, then “on the fringe of town”.
“I took a bit of getting one’s head around as a 23-year-old from the bush, coming to the ‘big smoke’,” he said.
“But it was a great place to work … It was just like a big family.”
The Royal Australian Mint, shortly after it opened in 1965. Photo: Libraries ACT (001101).
The Mint opened in 1965, tasked with crafting a smooth transition from the British imperial pounds, shillings and pence to our own range of decimal dollars and cents.
Mr Edwards worked in the administration section, rather than on the factory floor where all the hot and noisy production happened, but he describes “a very hands-on approach”.
A coin cutter at the Mint in 1970. Photo: National Archives of Australia (A1200, L84668).
“We had a bank of furnaces that produced a metal ingot; in the old money, about a foot wide, an inch thick and probably four or five feet long,” he explained.
“And we had two rolling millings which did the heavy work and reduced the ingot to the thickness of the coin that was then struck out of the metal.
“It then went to a finishing mill, which finished it down to the Nth degree because it was all very precise. Close enough isn’t good enough.”
By the time Mr Edwards returned to the Riverina in 1989, robotics were beginning to replace many of these functions.
Nowadays, 60 years and 15 billion coins in, the Mint employs 170 human staff members and uses several robots, named Titan, Robbie, Penny, Pence and Florin.
Titan, the biggest, weighs 4.6 tonnes and can lift 1000 kg drums of blank coins, pouring them into a hopper at the beginning of the production line.
“The processes in coin-making have largely remained the same, but technology has introduced a lot of innovation and made a lot more things automated,” Acting CEO Emily Martin said.
“You’ll see inside, we have a lot more robots working today who take our blanks and empty them into big barrels for the coin-making process, and that is great.”
The cake was decorated with the design of the 60th anniversary coin. Photo: James Coleman.
Due to the decline in the use of cash, the Mint has also had to step up its production of collectible coins, topped this week by the tribute 60th anniversary coin.
“The Mint will continue to make our circulating coins for as long as there is demand, but we are a multifaceted business,” Ms Martin said.
“We make a lot of collectible coins which have become so popular in the community and we think there’s a new generation of coin collectors out there.
“The important thing is that the Mint is here to tell Australian stories. Every coin tells a story.”
While here in Canberra, Mr Edwards also took the opportunity to wander through the Mint’s gallery with his son.
“When you spend close to a third of your working life … in one location, you have an affection for it,” he said.
“I wouldn’t change any one of those 19 years here.”
