Where the Money Comes From

From Steinbach, we headed northward on Highway 12 to the Trans-Canada Highway, which we followed into Winnipeg.

We had signed up for a tour of the Royal Canadian Mint. Chris had toured the Denver Mint many years ago, and being a bit of a numismatist has bought several commemorative coins from the RCM.





The Mint was in the middle of getting the grounds ready for celebratory events for Canada Day on July 1, so things were a little less organized than usual. We were early for the next tour, so we had ample time to browse the boutique and check out some of the exhibits. One thing that the boys really liked was the opportunity to lift a real gold brick (it was, naturally, chained to the stand and watched over by a security guard). There was also a place where one could step on a scale and see how much their weight would be worth in coins, silver, gold, or platinum.

The tour was interesting and well laid out, and we got to see a little bit of each step of the process of minting money. One interesting thing that we learned was that the Canadian Mint mints coinage for many other countries, including Ghana. They’ve also recently switched to electroplating their 1- and 5-cent coins instead of making them completely from copper and nickel.