People's Bar becomes selfie delight as miners line up

The People's Bar was formed by the Perth Mint and is now in the Guinness World Records after weighing in at just over half a tonne, beating the previous holder in Dubai by more than 200kg.

"It's been pretty amazing," mint refinery manager Jacques du Toit told AAP at the forum in Australia's gold mining capital of Kalgoorlie.

"Everyone just wants to come and have a look at the bar.

"It's been incredible how people actually want to come and touch and feel the bar, and feel what it's like to touch half a tonne of very, very pure gold."

The yellow bar of sunshine was a selfie sensation at the forum, with just about every second or third person stopping to get a snap.

The People's Bar has its own security guards, who've been on constant watch since the forum opened on Monday and will be on high alert when it's finally transported back to Perth.

The bar is 99.999 per cent pure, with an effective market price of about $95 million.

But it's probably worth more, Mr du Toit said, once its record-breaking status and provenance are taken into account, and given the fact that most retail gold has a slightly lower purity of 99.99 per cent.

The WA government-owned Perth Mint decided to make the bar to get people more excited about gold.

"Our purpose is to bring the wonder of this precious metal to the world," Mr du Toit said.

"It fits in so well, to make something extraordinary like this."

The People's Bar also has a secret life and its movements are closely guarded.

"It's very secret service stuff at the moment, but again this is owned by the people of WA, so we have to be very diligent," Mr du Toit said.

Once it leaves Kalgoorlie, it will go on show at the mint's premises in the Perth CBD.

After that, it will appear at select conferences or exhibitions.

There's also a good chance it will cross the WA border into other states.

"I'm pretty sure it will," Mr du Toit said.

"It will most likely go abroad as well." 

To create the bar, six large bars and extra smaller bars were loaded into a specially designed graphite mould. 

The mould went into the mint's flameless casting chamber, where the gold was heated to approximately 1400C. 

After hours of controlled cooling, the finished gold bar emerged, ready to be polished.

More than 35 specialists from across the mint's refinery and assay laboratory contributed to the project.

The gold was sourced from nine gold miners including BHP and Northern Star, which owns a massive super pit outside Kalgoorlie.

The forum ends on Wednesday.