Part of the Perth Mint's ongoing "Treasures of Australia" series celebrating individual states, this 2009 issue uses pad printing — a process borrowed from industrial product decoration — to apply color directly onto the coin surface. It's a technique the Perth Mint adopted aggressively in the mid-2000s to differentiate its collector output from standard RAM circulation issues. The colorized layer is not enamel and remains vulnerable to abrasion, which matters considerably for long-term preservation.
Part of the Perth Mint's ongoing "Treasures of Australia" series celebrating individual states, this 2009 issue uses pad printing — a process borrowed from industrial product decoration — to apply color directly onto the coin surface. It's a technique the Perth Mint adopted aggressively in the mid-2000s to differentiate its collector output from standard RAM circulation issues. The colorized layer is not enamel and remains vulnerable to abrasion, which matters considerably for long-term preservation.