I wonder if anyone has information on this bar which I found last week. Its a first pour bar from Harbour Lights mine in Leonora WA. The mine opened in 1985 and closed in 1994 and I tracked down the advert in the Sydney Morning Herald 12th June 1985 (see below). I contacted the Perth Mint through the Numismatic Society of Australia to find out more details including the mintage. As expected they have yet to acknowledge the communication never mind provide any answers. I wonder if anyone on SS has some info. Anything would be of value as we would like to add this to our data base of West Australian metals memorabilia. Thank you
Doesn't actually have to state the fineness itself.... Have a look at the ASE and AGE for comparison.
Heard back from the PM that they can't help me as there are no records available. That is a bit disappointing but I will keep looking. I am also looking into the story of the Harbour Lights mine at Leonora and it has a somewhat checkered history. The 1980 gold rush in WA was filled with flamboyant behaviour and speculative deals as we all know. It's a nice piece of West Australian history and the full story is still to be told. I will post details as I find out more. Thanks for the messages.
New bit of information is that the first BIOX plant in Australia, opened in 1991 at Harbour Lights. The BIOX technique is a bacterial oxidation process to increase gold recovery after conventional extraction with NaCn. Other Australian mines continue using the BIOX process including the Wiluna and Fosterville mines. "The Harbour Lights BIOX Plant" The Harbour Lights Mine, near Leonora in Western Australia, mined a refractory orebody, with the gold associated mainly with arsenopyrite and pyrite. Sulphide flotation was used to produce a concentrate containing 80 g/t gold,18% sulphur and 8% arsenic. The concentrate was cyanide leached and the residue, still containing 40 g/t gold, was stockpiled. The BIOX technology was licensed to Harbour Lights for the treatment of stockpiled and fresh concentrate. A process design package was provided to an Australian engineering company for the construction of a 40 tonne per day plant. Construction started in June 1991 and commissioning commenced at the end of 1991. Full production was achieved by June 1992. A performance test run conducted in October 1992 demonstrated that the guaranteed gold recovery of 92% could be achieved at the design throughput rate. The successful operation of the Harbour Lights BIOX plant again confirmed the commercial viability of the technology. BIOX plants are easy to operate (Harbour Lights used one operator per shift), and the bacterial strain can adapt to new environments within a relatively short period. Operations at Harbour Lights were terminated in 1994 when the orebody was depleted. The BIOX plant was decommissioned at the end of that year.
