Crazyburn - Near the Mint, but no Mint Container Traditional Geocache
Crazyburn - Near the Mint, but no Mint Container
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(regular)
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This cache is one of the Crazyburn series of caches that will take you for a little trip to different places around Craigieburn.
There is a mixture of sizes - larger caches hidden in plain sight, smaller containers hidden in nooks and crannies, sneaky micros, and everything in between. There is a mixture of areas – parks, shopping centres, sports fields and even the big weird things that you see while you drive around, but never went and had a good look at. Some of the caches will be easy finds, while others will hopefully have you scratching your head for a while.
Some of the caches in this series contain a clue for the final, so make sure you write down any numbers that you happen across.
This cache is down the road from Note Printing Australia, or “the mint”. This is where Australia’s banknotes are printed, in addition to Australian Passports.
Note Printing Australia (NPA) has been producing Australian banknotes for virtually a century. NPA, as it is now more commonly known in the industry, evolved from the original print works established by T.S. Harrison to produce Australia's first circulating banknote series in 1913.
Australian banknotes are printed on sheets of polymer substrate in NPA's printing hall using various printing plates, processes, machines and inks.
Australian banknotes start out as plastic pellets, which are melted and blown into a three-storey bubble. The walls of the bubble are pressed together and cooled to form laminated polymer film. Special inks are applied to make the film opaque, except for certain areas which are left free of ink to create the clear windows, before it is cut into sheets.
Different sized sheets are used for each denomination and the number of banknotes printed on a sheet varies. A sheet of the new $5 banknotes has 54 banknotes. For the first polymer series, there were 45 polymer banknotes on a sheet of $10 banknotes, 40 banknotes on a sheet of $5, $20 and $50 banknotes and 32 banknotes on a sheet of $100 banknotes.
The first printing process involves the background colours and patterns being printed onto both sides of the polymer sheets at the same time by simultan printing machines. These machines can print up to 8,000 sheets per hour.
The new series of banknotes has two security features not previously used on an Australian banknote, which are applied at this stage. The multiple security features in the top-to-bottom window are applied as a continuous strip and then the rolling colour effect is applied on a screen-printing process using an optically-variable ink.
Major design elements such as the portraits and narrative elements are printed next using intaglio printing machines. In this process, the ink is transferred to the sheets under great pressure using engraved metal plates. Separate print runs are required for each side of the sheet. The resulting raised print is one of the important security features of Australia's polymer banknotes. Some of the microprinting and embossed features are also produced during this process.
Serial numbers are then added to the sheets using a letterpress printing process.
A protective overcoating ink is applied to the banknotes using an offset printing press. This overcoat contributes to the extended durability and cleanliness of polymer banknotes.
For the new series of banknotes, the tactile feature is applied in a final print run. The tactile feature has been developed to assist the vision-impaired community to identify different denominations. It is made up of different numbers of raised bumps on the long edges of the banknote next to the top-to-bottom window.
Printed sheets are then guillotined into individual banknotes and inspected to ensure their quality meets the required standard. The finished banknotes are then shrink-wrapped, packed into containers and stored in a strong-room prior to distribution around the country.
Since 1993, Australian banknotes have been numbered using a 'Year-Dated System'. Under this system, each banknote on a given sheet has a different letter prefix (e.g. AA or AB). The first two numbers of the prefix, which indicate the year the banknote was produced, are the same for all banknotes printed in the same year. All banknotes on a sheet will have the same suffix, which decreases by one from one sheet to the next. While the first polymer series has a six-digit suffix, the new series of banknotes has a seven-digit suffix to accommodate the possibility of larger print runs.
The cache is a 1L Sistema container.
Additional Hints
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