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 steel technology except for the $1 and $2 circulation coins, which started using this technology as of April 10, 2012. Many foreign countries have had coinage struck at the Royal Canadian Mint, including circulation coins, numismatic coins, and ready-to-strike blanks. In 1970, Master of the Mint, Gordon Ward Hunter, relaunched the Foreign Circulation division. A contract for Singapore was won in January 1970, to produce six million rimmed blanks in a copper-nickel alloy. This was their first export contract since a contract for the Dominican Republic 32 years earlier. The second contract came in April 1970 with the Central Bank