After many years of requests, in 1620 Philip III issued a royal decree authorising the foundation of a Mint (Casa de Moneda) in Santa Fe de Bogotá to the engineer Alonso Turrillo de Yebra. The Mint (Casa de Moneda) was established in 1622. For a long time, the mint was a kind of blacksmith's shop with single-storey furnaces for smelting and refining. It was there that all coins were struck using the hammer technique, including the first gold coins made in America in 1622.

The ordinance received in Santa Fe on 13 December 1751 instructed the Viceroy, José Alfonso Pizarro, Marquis of Villar, to mint coins in round or serrated-edge form, although the use of the hammer was authorised until such time as suitable minting material was available. The ordinance passed the mint into the hands of the Crown, and the minting of coins by private individuals ceased. It was also ordered to extend the building and adapt the spaces to the needs of the mechanised production of new coins with the introduction of mills and flywheel presses. For this purpose, on 30 November 1750, Tomás Sánchez Reciente (the first director of the Royal Mint (Casa de Moneda)), Juan de Chaves as assayer and José Martín Carpintero and Francisco Benito as carvers, arrived from the mainland, with the minting material from Seville, from where it was transported in 249 crates. In them, there were small wooden models of the Sevillian mills and shuttlecocks to be made in Santa Fe, five punches with the portraits of the king and dies. While the new building was being erected, the treasurer, Isidro José de Cabrera y Subía, ordered on 20 August 1753 that the minting of gold coins should continue until the circular coinage could be established. The enlargement work was inaugurated in 1756 and from 1757 onwards all coins were struck on flywheel presses.

The production of coinage, mainly gold, continued steadily until the end of the colonial era. On 17 December 1819 the Republic of Colombia was created, and from 1820 onwards coins continued to be minted at the rates of the new republic.

The Santa Fe Mint (Casa de Moneda) is located on the corner of Calle 11 and Carrera 5. The building has survived all kinds of earthquakes, revolutions, and fires. It was declared a national monument in 1975 by decree 1584, completely restored and converted into an exhibition centre. Except for the foundry and the mule-driven rolling mill, which have disappeared, the Mint (Casa de Moneda) we see today is essentially the one that was reopened by Viceroy Solís in 1756 after an expansion. Today it houses an important numismatic museum.