What’s the difference between Mint and Refinery?

When it comes to Precious Metals investing, we often hear of well-known mints and refineries such as The Perth Mint, Argor-Heraeus, Austrian Mint, Pamp Suisse, Royal Canadian Mint and more. However, do you know what a mint and a refinery do? And what is the difference between them? Today, we will be sharing some basic but helpful information about them.

Mint

In simple terms, a mint is a factory where the bars and coins are produced. Most of the world’s leading mints, such as the Royal Canadian Mint, Austrian Mint, The Perth Mint and the US Mint, are state-owned, so they have the government’s consent to mint coins to be used as legal tender or national currencies. For example, the Canadian Maple Leaf Silver Coin 1oz has a monetized face value of 5 CAD (Canadian dollars), and the Austrian Philharmonic Gold Coin 1oz is worth 100 Euro.

Refinery

Mainly, the refinery is to refine the Precious Metals such as Gold, Silver and Platinum. The refinery process removes impurities, refines them, and produces them into investment grade bars and coins. Refineries can be from the industries such as mineral explorations, mining, jewellery business or scrap metal recycling.

Some of the well-known refineries in the precious metals industry are Argor-Heraeus, Pamp Suisse, Valcambi, Rand Refinery and more. We only carry bars from refiners who LBMA has accredited as meeting the exacting standards for trading on the global OTC (Over- The-Counter). You can check the LBMA accredited refinery list here.

GoldSilver Central has been an authorized and reputable bullion dealer in Singapore for 10 years. We carry a wide range of physical bullion from various LBMA accredited mints and refineries. In case you were wondering, we celebrated our 10th Anniversary last March! (Link to our 10th anniversary page). If you are interested in buying physical bullion, feel free to get in touch with us, and we will be more than happy to walk with you throughout your Precious Metals investing journey!

Evonne