Visit to Melbourne Mint & Hellenic Museum

In lieu of our normal lunch meeting, no fewer than 36 of us went to look at the Melbourne Mint and the Hellenic Museum – which are the two disparate enterprises housed within the old Melbourne Mint building.

The historic building is fantastic, especially from the outside which stands tall and proud.

Inside, Melbourne Mint is a business that sells and buys and stores gold – both coins and ingots.  We experienced – intensively, evangelically - the selling side of the business.  The preacher (er, sorry, his title was probably something like Sales Director) explained that every investor should consider having gold in their portfolio, over the long term.  Why?  Because when the current splurge of printing money by many governments finally causes a recession, then gold – only gold – will retain its value.

The presentation was very polished, with huge touch-screen aids etc.  But, as we went out of the darkened audio visual room, Brian Reid was heard saying, in effect, “but you can’t eat gold, and we need income with which to buy food.”  At lunch Ken Scott was heard to suggest that shares in gold mines were very cheap at present.

After lunch, some members had a tour of the Hellenic Museum.  Your correspondent, however, had already looked at many of the exhibits, and reckons that it is very similar to parts of the splendid Immigration Museum in Flinders Street.

Was this an interesting outing?  Yes.  Was this a fun outing?  That depends on your response to pressure salesmanship!  But President Ngaire has a more rosy view – see her message at the head of this bulletin.