Rand Refinery Rand Refinery Rand Refinery (Pty) Limited is the largest integrated single-site precious metals refining and smelting complex in the world. It was established in 1920 to refine gold within South Africa which until that time had been refined in London. Since its inception it has refined nearly 50,000 tonnes of gold. This represents some 30% of all the gold mined in the world since antiquity. It was established in 1920 in Germiston, South Africa, by the Chamber of Mines of South Africa to refine all the gold produced by South Africa's gold mines instead of in London. As of 1919,
Japanese currency Japanese currency Japanese currency has a history covering the period from the 8th century to the present. After the traditional usage of rice as currency medium, Japan's currency was characterized by an early adoption of currency systems and designs from China before developing a separate system of its own. Before the advent of the 7-8th century CE, Japan used commodity money for its exchanges. It generally consisted of material that was compact, easily transportable and had a widely recognized value. Commodity money was a great improvement over simple barter, in which commodities were simply exchanged against others. Ideally, commodity money