ARTICLE PROFILES NORTHWEST TERRITORIAL MINT

You won’t find any signs marking the location of the Northwest Territorial Mint.

This is the largest private mint in the United States. It produces coins for several foreign countries, gold and silver bullion coins, bronze stars and most other medals for members of the military, the Boy Scouts and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

With this kind of wealth lying around, one doesn’t make it easy for unsavory characters to discover the mint “at the end of a road to nowhere,” said Rob Vugteveen, special assistant to the company’s CEO and founder, Ross Hansen.

While there are no Northwest Territorial Mint signs outside the building, there are Medallic Art signs. They make it sound like the building houses some kind of art supply or trophy business.

“You don’t want to advertise to people who might think there is a lot of gold and silver here. The fact is there isn’t. It comes in, we do the work and it goes out.”

Northwest Territorial Mint was founded in Seattle in 1984 by Ross Hansen, who still runs the company.

In 2009, the company purchased the Medallic Art Co. facility in Dayton. The company, long based in New York City, has been producing medallions since 1903.

Hansen moved most of Northwest Territorial Mint’s production operations to this facility.

According to Vugteveen, Hansen had been an investor who was disappointed in the quality of bullion coins. Some of the mint owners from whom he bought coins said if he thought it was so easy, then he should do it himself.

So he did.

“The Denver Mint makes stuff like this,” said Vugteveen, pulling a coin from his pocket. “We make works of art.”

Many of the silver and gold investment coins are individually minted by applying 600 tons of pressure to the blanks.

All coins go through a polishing process to ensure they sparkle when they reach the hands of buyers.

To read the complete article, see: Mint celebrates more than state's 150th anniversary (www.reviewjournal.com/news/nevada-and-west/mint-celebrates-more-states-150th-anniversary)

Wayne Homren, Editor

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web