Actually, mints are related to inflation. Certain high demand items (partyhats, divines and elysians) developed a street value above their GE price. So it became necessary to "junk trade" for them. The problem now is that, because of inflation, gp is itself junk (and crashing junk at that). It has become almost impossible to buy a partyhat with pure cash. Nobody wants the cash. That is where the mint came in. It's a relatively rare item that emerged as a sort of currency allowing the high demand items to be traded for something other than themselves. So you can't buy a partyhat with pure cash (even using junk trading), but, if you can gather enough mints, you can buy one. The problem is accumulating enough mints -- easier said than done. Wow that made Gp sound like noob currency.