At The Perth Mint Today

Well. Well.

Yes, I went there today, you know, to just have a look around at what was really going on, 'on the ground there...'

Fewer Chinese tourists. LOTS more Indian, Sub-Continent tourists. LOTS of group tours of people ranging from the standard local pensioner group tours to obviously foreign tourists, mainly middle-age with a few younger but mature couples added in. Well-off. No question about it.

This was an evening function from a while ago, but they do this
kind of thing every now and then.

The Perth Mint is housed in a very old and fairly grand set of buildings, with extremely well-kept grounds around it featuring courtyards and gardens. But it is a combination of very high tech, advanced modern architecture and design inside, somehow blended in with real old school metal banking facilities - and it has the feel of a gold bank and throughout the whole of my own personal experience of the place, the staff are absolutely outstanding. To some extent it may seem a bit odd to say this, but they (executive, management and staff) are friendly. They never seem to portray being under stress at all and for me going to the place is a cure for anxiety.

As has been the case several times in the past, there are lines of minted bullion bars in particular, for which you are going to have to wait according to the official advice, up to a month for physical delivery. You can fix a current price though, over the counter. And I know that waiting times are often not anywhere near as long as a month - they just ring you and let you know when the material is available for you to pick up. It likely means they are managing production according to a filled order batch, I presume; that's what it feels like to me. And that does not mean there isn't a strong demand right now pulling shelf stock out - there absolutely is. There is a stated 'run' on various popular lines, smaller bullion bars but also the kilo bars, and particularly in silver, whereas with gold you can more regularly get what you are after on the spot. But even there, not always. Precious metals are definitely in fairly powerful demand; and this is very evident from the visible numbers of people continuously going in and out of the dealing counters area. You won't be queuing in a long queue, but you might be shepherded around a bit while they get a slot available for you.

This is a bank. A real bank. With real money in it.

And everybody loves it and you get a good feeling when you go to the place.

Did I buy anything? Yeah, I bought some silver.

It is feeling like evening, in the economic world...