Step 1: Sourcing

There are numerous sources of gold. As well as mining, gold is also recycled from old jewellery, bullion, electronics and ornaments.

Step 2: Refining

Once sourced the gold is refined to be .9999 pure. There are a number of methods for refining gold in the quantities required by a professional bullion trader to .9999 pure. To ensure that our gold is of the highest quality, New Zealand Mint sources gold from some of the top refiners in Switzerland and Australia.

Step 3: Pouring

To turn refined gold into coins it needs to be heated to over 1064.18°C, which is the melting point of gold. Once melted, the gold is poured into bars and then cooled very quickly.

Step 4: Rolling, Blanking and Annealing

The bars are then rolled into thin sheets and blanks are stamped out. Rolling the gold makes it very hard so to soften it for pressing it goes through a process called annealing. Annealing is where the gold is heated, making it more malleable. Finally, the blank is polished which makes it ready to mint.

Step 5: Minting

This process takes a lot of skill and before the blank can be made into a coin the dies need to be polished - a skill that takes many years to learn.

Once the dies are ready, blanks are fed into the press. Each time the press strikes a coin, the gold is compressed into the shape of the die, filling every space. Because gold is so malleable the coin takes the shape of the die very easily. This minting process makes it very difficult to produce fakes, as tungsten would shatter a die instantly.

Once the coin is pressed, it is polished and packaged, ready for you to buy.