At 6 or 7 hours, the lineup to get into the Royal Canadian Mint is the second-longest in town. Normally a dull afterthought, the Mint is suddenly golden. Reason? The Mint created the high-profile Olympic medals:
"The radically undulating face of the medals invokes the sea and mountains...and they establish several milestones.."
1. Heaviest medals in games history, at 500 to 576 grams each (more than 4 Quarter-Pounders!)
2. No two medals are alike (all totally different designs...)
3. ...because laser etching was used to flawlessly reproduce a unique First Nations design on the medal face.
The design was matrixed into 615 Olympic medals and 399 Paralympic medals. A winning athlete can look up his or her medal on the matrix, and the number and text on each is unique.
There's all the other details of casting, milling, pressing and cladding (good to -20C!). But those people that lineup for 7 hours just want to touch a medal.
Back out on the street the buskers and the Mounties at my favourite province are winning medals of their own --- is that worth a mint??
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