Royal Canadian Mint

of the Royal Canadian Mint

The Royal Canadian Mint produces all of Canada's circulation coins, and manufactures circulation coins on behalf of other nations. The Mint designs and manufactures: collector coins; gold, silver and platinum bullion coins; customized medals, tokenss and trade dollars; and watches and jewellery featuring coin designs. It also offers gold refinery and assay services.

The President and Master of the Mint is the senior executive officer of the organization, reporting to a Board of Directors appointed by the Minister of Public Works and Government Services.
The Mint operates under the legislative basis of the Royal Canadian Mint Act.

The Mint has been at the forefront of currency innovation. Among the Mint's technical innovations was the world's first coloured circulation coin, the 2004 Remembrance Day 25-cent piece, with a red poppy on the reverse.

Many foreign countries have had coinage struck at the Royal Canadian Mint.

History

The Ottawa branch of the Royal Mint was formed in 1908 in Ottawa, Ontario. Prior to the Royal Mint opening up in Ottawa, Canada's currency was souly produced in Great Britain at the Royal Mint and the Heaton Mint. After the Royal Mint branch opened in Ottawa, it allowed Canada to create their own coinage and create coinage for many other nations/territories including Newfoundland. The first coin ever to be produced at the Royal Mint facility was the 50 cent coin on January 2, 1908.
During the years following the opening of the mint, the mint offered collector coins sets of coins produced by the mint, most of these sets today are worth thousands of dollars. During World War 1, there was a large demand for silver and copper, there were a few years where there were very few coins being produced.
In 1931, the Royal Mint was made a Canadian government corporation and renamed to the Royal Canadian Mint, since the Ottawa Mint was now Canadian owned, the mint was no longer allowed to produce gold sovereign coins. World War 2 and the Korean War saw the low mintages of most of their coinages, as well as the first time using tombac in the 5 cent coin.
In 1967, the mint introduced a series of commemorative coins in honour of the Canadian centennial, every coin produced that year featured a creature that is native to Canada. This was the last year that all circulation coins from the 10 cent coin to the 1 dollar coin contained 75% silver.
In 1971, the mint re-introduced the silver dollar to collectors with the centennial of British Columbia, this dollar was also featured in a hard-bound coin set for the first time.
In 1976, the Winnipeg branch of the Royal Canadian Mint opened, allowing Ottawa to concentrate souly on collector coins while the Winnipeg mint would produce the entire supply of circulation coins to date.
Since then, the Royal Canadian Mint has received many awards for innovations in technology and quality by using only the finest quality for coinage and creating coins that people from other nations would look up to. The Royal Canadian Mint created the world's first circulation colour coin in 2004, featuring a red poppy in honour of Remembrance Day, as well as help in the creation of the coin blanks of the Sacagawea dollar for the United States Mint.

External links

Royal Canadian Mint Official Website

Royal Canadian Mint Act

Canadian Numismatic Association

Numismatic Network Canada

Canadian Coin News

Homepage for the Red Poppy Quarter

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