Royal Mint plant for striking. This first phase of the mint was officially opened on 17 December 1968 by the royal attendance of Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip and their son Prince Charles. Originally there were fears that the Royal family would face protests because of the Investiture of Prince Charles as the Prince of Wales; however, such protests failed to materialise. The second phase of construction began in 1973 and included the addition of a means to mint coins from virgin metals completing the full minting process. Upon completion the final cost for the land, buildings and plant came to £8
Royal Canadian Mint to adding a painted design to more than three million coins, the Mint was required to identically orient the design on every coin. To accomplish this, the Mint, in collaboration with Canadian robotic equipment manufacturer PharmaCos Machinery, developed its own robotic arm to “pick and place” each coin on the painting line, creating a new technical capability unique to the Royal Canadian Mint. The Mint has also supplied 230 million low-denomination coins to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand in 2006. The Reserve Bank chose to reduce the size of its existing 50-, 20- and 10-cent coins and manufacture them