We are pleased to offer a very limited supply of the new Queen Elizabeth Memorial Coinage, just released by the Royal Canadian Mint. Each with a unique set of four conjoined portraits of the Queen on obverse, representing the different effigies that have appeared on Canadian coinage since 1953.
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It is seldom that a new Royal Canadian Mint issue earns our applause, however a fabulous recent release has me truly impressed.
The 2019 “First Canadian in Space” Twenty-five cent issue commemorates the 35th anniversary of Marc Garneau’s historic launch on the Space Shuttle Challenger.
A recent story that broke in Ottawa caused significant ripples in the public interest, but only scratched the surface on a problem that has been plaguing our industry and hobby for the past few years. See the article here on the CBC website.
In this case, a jeweller in downtown Ottawa visited his nearby Royal Bank branch and purchased a purported one-ounce gold wafer manufactured by the Royal Canadian Mint. Upon beginning to process the bar for use in his jewellery-crafting, however, the piece was quickly revealed to be counterfeit. In other words, neither an authentic Royal Canadian Mint product nor an item with any actual gold content.
There is no debating the importance of this story to casual investors and the bullion/numismatic industry at large, however – as is often the case when the press chews down on a juicy news-bone – the key points to be taken became diluted and misdirected.
First and foremost, the issue of counterfeit bullion is not a new story. Indeed, a search of the CBC’s own online archives reveals several references to counterfeit gold (both bars and jewellery) being peddled to inexperienced purchasers in the Canadian market over the past few years. Further, in one of the most glaring examples of the experts themselves being duped, gold-dealers in Midtown New York found themselves victims in 2012 of a rash of fraudulent 10-ounce gold bars, each with a then-value of almost $20,000. Even with their experience and intuitive understanding of the material, complacency led to a failure in standard due-diligence, with somewhat devastating financial results. Indeed, as gold-refiner and trader Ibrahim Fadl reflected in the aftermath of his $80,000 loss, “I and the others on the street work off trust; now that trust is strained”. Thus, this is not a new concern to present-day consumers, as further evidenced by the ongoing offering of outright counterfeit Royal Canadian Mint gold bars on websites such as wish.com, referred to as “replicas” and sold at correspondingly cheap prices. In fact, this very point causes me to take significant issue with perhaps the most erroneous statement to come out of this most recent press coverage, namely the Mint’s assertion that “counterfeiting of the Royal Canadian Mint’s gold bullion is very rare”. We will return to this point, however.
The involvement of the Royal Canadian Mint (or lack thereof) in this current fake gold scandal brings me to my second observation of CBC’s coverage. Although the Mint and I don’t always see eye-to-eye when it comes to their Numismatic policies, having to listen to them steadfastly deny any responsibility for Royal Bank’s counterfeit sale made me cringe. To say they had nothing to do with this singular issue is simply a given. Certainly, to ask them the question is fair game in journalistic due-diligence, but once answered, it really is time to move on to the more pertinent facts and concerns.
Yes, the RCM was somewhat on the hot-seat as it was their product, trade-mark and reputation being abused here, but make no mistake – counterfeit products do not, and simply never will originate from within the walls of their venerable Sussex drive institution. Quite aside from their stellar international reputation, this is a business where security protocol requires both staff and management on the refining side of the plant to exit in sock feet at the end of their work-day, so that even their shoes can be separately x-rayed. Not-withstanding a crafty employee’s recent rectal smuggling campaign, the design, production and distribution of counterfeit gold bars at the Mint with either tacit or covert approval could simply never happen. Thus, to continue to look in their direction on this is an unproductive red herring.
Understandably they are feeling the intense pressure at the optics of having their name bandied around in the press. In the third of three interviews I did for CBC on the story, I met a news crew on a dark Sussex Street corner in the rain, just a few paces from the Mint’s main gate. I had not been there for two minutes when the door of the guard-house popped open, and a trench coat with an umbrella walked over to see me. It was the Mint’s director of communications, and – like myself – he wasn’t entirely clear what the CBC was doing on their doorstep in the early evening. We chatted briefly, and it was clear he was just looking for reassurance that we weren’t there on a Mint-bashing exercise. I clarified my own position (that I was steadfastly in their corner), although he did make one comment on the seemingly limited concern he had for those counterfeit RCM numismatic (i.e. “collector”) coins being sold online from overseas that were described and priced as “Replicas”. In reality, our dealer association feels these coins are every bit as damaging to the integrity of our hobby as are counterfeit gold bullion products, and I will return to this point shortly.
Perhaps obscured in CBC’s focus on the Mint and the perceived “new” threat of counterfeit gold, however, are the two most fundamentally pressing questions:
What was Royal Bank doing selling precious metals across the counter, and what are they doing purchasing gold bullion from the public, both of these activities evidently without the prerequisite product knowledge that the bullion business demands? Let me expand on both of these issues.
Firstly, it has been years (even decades) since the chartered banks in Canada were active retail bullion traders. Back “in the day”, I remember walking to my local TD branch in Westboro and ordering a ten-ounce bar of silver. I would pay the fee, and some days later a brand-new TD bar would arrive for pickup. This was similar with most banks. Most especially, Scotiabank was so active in the precious-metal business in the 1970s and later, that you could even purchase older European gold coinage from them of all sizes and varieties. And this makes perfect sense. After all, in a trading business so dependent on secure facilities and abundant operating cash, who better to make a market for themselves in precious-metals than the banks? Over the past decade or so this has changed considerably, however, with most banks abandoning the retail trade of metals entirely. Even Scotiabank, who continues to maintain (I believe) a visible bullion counter at their main Ottawa branch, appears far less interested in dealing in metals and has become quite uncompetitive, making even the selling to them of products originally purchased there quite difficult. The product-knowledge seems to have evaporated at the front-line level, with Scotiabank usually requiring the “sending of coins/bars to head office for verification” before consummating a purchase from the public.
Thus, on the one hand, it came as both a surprise and significant concern to our Canadian Association of Numismatic Dealers that the Royal Bank was suddenly re-entering the bullion business. And I hasten to clarify this is not in the least an issue of concern for competition, but rather – as the core issue of this story hammers home in spades – an issue of product knowledge and, most critically, consumer protection and confidence.
The question, ultimately, is both a simple and important one. Where did this counterfeit bar come from? As we know definitively that it did not originate from the Mint at any time or in any scenario, it could only have come from a front-line, across-the-counter purchase from the public (assuming we eliminate the legitimate possibility of an internal “switcheroo” by staff). For numerous reasons, including some already highlighted above, this prompts some significant ethical and procedural questions. For a chartered bank to be purchasing precious-metals directly from the public in this way is fairly unprecedented in recent times. The controls put in place to manage inventory have to be effective, and most important of all, the product knowledge has to be rock-solid. The current police investigation into this particular incident will certainly shed light on the former; on the produce-knowledge side, we already have our verdict. As a bullion dealer myself, I have little tolerance or sympathy for Royal on this one. On numerous levels this crappy bar should never have made it past first review, and certainly never, ever have been sold to the public as authentic. Any dealer worth their weight should have had concerns on encountering this bar. True, this particular piece (as with most newer RCM Bars) was sealed in a plastic holder, making the rudimentary test of weighing the piece ineffective. As I demonstrated on CBC television, however, the simple $1,200 electrical conductivity tester we keep in our gallery would have permitted the successful scanning of the piece through the plastic, without having to necessarily compromise the integrity of the holder. Every recognized fineness of silver and gold gives off a different footprint, and – while nothing is a 100% replacement for experience and product knowledge – a ten-second scanning of this piece at the point of Bank purchase (and indeed, at point of sale) would have definitively identified the piece as counterfeit. There is no grey area here. True, the net dollars at risk here were fairly small potatoes (certainly in the eyes of Royal Bank), and the customer was promptly refunded his money. The irony is, however, that this particular purchaser was a working jeweller, rather than the typical casual investor. He was, therefore, the “one in a thousand” that would have immediate need to breakdown his gold purchase for crafting use, and hence almost immediately be able to identify the piece as fraudulent. How many other purchasers would simply have added the piece to the contents of their safety-deposit-boxes, perhaps not to be revisited for years or even decades? For this happenstance we are particularly fortunate.
The most important irony in all of this, and hence the source of our industry’s most acute concern? Fraudulent and counterfeit gold and silver have plagued our economy for hundreds if not thousands of years, and therefore – as stressed above – is far from being a modern threat. As a result, the stock answer we, and past generations of bullion dealers have given when asked how one can have confidence in their purchase and minimize risk is very straight-forward: always buy from reputable sources! If not the manufacturers themselves (where possible), then established bullion/coin dealers of good reputation, or the Chartered Banks.
And therein lays both my main point as well as the fundamental issue with this incident and resulting news coverage. It is not the $1,600 potentially lost by the duped consumer, nor the fantasy of our national Mint possibly manufacturing counterfeit gold bars, and not even the possible petty internal theft of a teller gone rogue. What threatens to come out of this is a seismic shock-wave to public confidence, and it is in the interest of neutralizing this that all stops have to be pulled out to resolve this “Royal Bank incident”. For this I am quite appreciative of the CBC’s extensive coverage, were it only able to focus on the true core-issues at hand here. Believe it or not, I was asked point-blank on live CBC television during that Sussex Drive interview if my advice was for people to stop buying gold. I am a micro-player in the precious-metals market who of course presented the common-sense response to that question, but just imagine: had I instead, for whatever reason, chosen to use that 30-second soap-box to launch a calm tirade on the profound risks involved in purchasing physical gold, the possible and immediate impact on at least our local bullion industry might well have been more than immaterial.
Thus is the power of public perception and confidence, and in turn, the critical importance of the integrity of the retail precious-metals business.
In closing, I want to briefly return to the parallel scourge of counterfeit commemorative coins being massed-produced in China. Being offered as “replicas” at a fraction of corresponding Royal Canadian Mint issue prices, there are literally hundreds of different coins entering our market, often within just weeks of official RCM launches in Canada. While I suspect it is just a brave face during this overwhelming assault on both the Mint’s propriety designs and the potential “after-market” pocket-books of collectors, I take significant issue with their communication director’s position that they are not especially concerned with these items being sold as “replicas”, rather than as purported originals. This not only makes absolutely no sense to me from a business-perspective (after all, a dollar spent on this fraudulent crap is a dollar not spent with either the Mint or their distributors, such as ourselves), but the Mint is also dead wrong if they believe no concrete harm comes to our collecting community as a result of these replicas.
Never was this more evident to me than a couple weeks back, when a young collector came to the shop with a three-piece set of the earliest Superman coins in silver and gold. We had pre-negotiated over the telephone to purchase them for $1,200, however when presented to me, I had to break the news that they were clearly counterfeit, and effectively worthless. I have no sense that the seller was trying to defraud me – the Chinese producers had chosen to make the gold coin the same diameter as the silver (or about 3 times normal size!). However the quality was good, and the collector clearly lacked the skills to tell fine silver/gold from precious-metal plated. The kid remained composed and didn’t share with me the context of how he acquired the coins, but my gut told me he had been duped. He had done his basic research, and was probably conned into spending $200 or $300 on the set thinking he had scored, only to become one of the scorned who might possibly never spend another dollar on numismatic coins.
And indeed, it is not only the unenlightened who always gets defrauded by these replicas. I remember one bizarre incident a couple years back where I thought we had discovered a unique variety of one of the coloured base-metal “bird” twenty-five cent coins. It was a current issue, and our example had a distinct raised ring around the outside rim on the bird side of the piece, which was not present on the actual issued piece as depicted on the leading website of a good dealer colleague. This continued to stump us until we made a surprising discovery – the piece depicted on the website was actually a Chinese-made counterfeit, and hence the piece I had in hand was the normal issued piece! With no malice or intent to deceive involved, our colleagues – with their busy dealership and numerous staff – had simply had the piece enter their inventory at one point, and then make its way through the several steps involved in getting it scanned and posted, without being detected. The quality was that good, and the possibility of perpetuating accidental fraud thus that easy.
Our entire industry and fraternal hobby is united in our position concerning Canadian coin “replicas”, in that they are bad news all the way. In addition to being outright assaults on the proprietary design copyrights of the Royal Canadian Mint, the opportunities for fraud and deceit as outlined above far outweigh any possible argument for permitting such items to be sold. Additionally, every single “replica” of a legal-tender Canadian coin that is not clearly marked “copy” remains illegal to both possess and trade; as overworked as they are on this front, both Canadian Border Services and the RCMP therefore have both a right and a mandate to seize these coins when encountered.
I invite all our readers, customers and colleagues to help us maintain a legitimate and safe collecting environment by outright rejecting these counterfeit coins. And, finally, on the subject of precious-metal investing, all that glitters is certainly not gold (or silver, for that matter), and the rules are simple:
Know what you are buying, and buy from a trusted source!
End of rant – happy collecting!
Sean Isaacs
We are delighted to announce that one of the Royal Canadian Mint’s newest commissioned artists, Graham Spaull, will be joining us in store for a meet-and-greet with our customers on September 23rd.
Graham Spaull
An accomplished Ottawa-area illustrator and graphic designer, Mr. Spaull’s latest creation, “The Monarch Butterfly”, is being featured on the newly-released “Monarch Migration” Fifty Dollar coin. Containing 3 oz of .999 Silver, this 55mm issue is the largest Butterfly coin ever struck.
Please stop in to meet the artist, and to see his original artwork behind this lovely coin.
Saturday September 23rd
11:00 am to 4:00 pm
Alliance Coin & Banknote showroom
88 Mill Street, Almonte, Ontario
Please Note
With a limited mintage of just 3,500 pieces, we will have only a small number of examples on hand for those interested in purchasing the coin. The official issue price is $299.95 (tax-exempt); please contact us in advance if you would like a coin reserved for you.
1936 Dot Box Interior
It has been said that a journey is often more significant than the destination itself, and indeed, while most of us can identify with the adage, I had never contemplated this in the context of an inanimate object. That is, however, until I received an intriguing telephone inquiry in the fall of 2012.
As is often the case, I was contacted by a legal firm in the Ottawa area, and asked to provide a numismatic estate appraisal. Unusually, however, this estate consisted of a single coin, which was being described to me as none other than the fabled 1936 “Dot” Penny. Arguably Canada’s most famous coinage rarity, special strikings of this otherwise common date were prepared with a raised dot beneath the date – signifying their actual striking in 1937, while awaiting new dies after the unexpected abdication of King Edward VIII. Naturally I was highly skeptical.
While I once had the privilege of being present for the public sale of one of these extreme rarities, only three Specimen strikings of the purported several hundred thousand struck had ever been discovered. Indeed, of the many wishful claims over the years that I, and many other dealers have fielded, not a single known circulated example has ever been discovered. The variety of imposters I have seen are limited only by the human imagination, and range from “dot-added” forgeries to clever obverse-drilled examples which produce a semi-natural “hump” in the general vicinity of where the dot normally would be.
Mystery Cent
Due diligence demanded I respond to this inquiry, however, and I followed through with a visit to the firm’s office. As expected, I was presented with a coin that evidently was a small Cent of George V, but that was it. Rarely had I seen a Penny that was as structurally impaired as this estate piece, and whether or not it was actually a 1936-dated piece was even inconclusive. It was indeed a one-in-a-million piece, but unfortunately not in a positive way. The actual market value of this numismatic estate? Less than the value of the envelope in which it was housed.
Click to enlarge
In fact, had I not taken a casual second look at the envelope itself, I might never have come to appreciate the remarkable journey this coin had taken in its quest for recognition. What first caught my eye on the cream-coloured linen envelope was the “On Her Majesty’s Service” imprint, then the custom “Royal Mint” embossment, and finally both London and Ottawa Registration stamps from the spring of 1967 (yes, the envelope was posted when I was just five weeks old). Revisiting the accompanying paperwork, a delightful story quickly unfolded before me.
The coin entered the first leg of its journey through the Canadian postal system, as the Ottawa-based owner forwarded it to England’s Royal Mint with a request for authentication as a 1936 “Dot” striking. This in itself is ironic, as – per the Royal Mint’s responding small typed letter of April 28th, 1967 – England had not struck Canadian coins since the opening of the Royal Canadian Mint (originally, the Ottawa Branch of the Royal Mint) in 1908. Thus, where the owner could have taken a 10-minute jaunt to Sussex Drive and likely obtained an authoritative opinion from the coin’s actual manufacturer, it was instead sent on a transatlantic journey. To the likely disappointment of the owner, the above-referenced letter, eminently thoughtful and concise, confirms the uncertainty of the piece and refers the sender back to the “Ottawa Mint”.
Click to enlarge
Thus, on April 28th, 1967 (again, the same day the letter was dated), the coin was once again packaged up and dispatched via Registered Royal Mail where it was received into the Canadian postal system two weeks later on May 12th – just weeks before Canada’s Centennial.
Also found in the envelope was the obvious catalyst for the owner’s inquiry – a newspaper clipping of a short article written by the late numismatic luminary James Charlton, detailing the intriguing story of the 1936 Dot coinage.
Click to enlarge
Once back on Canadian soil, a subsequent letter from the Royal Canadian Mint marks the final stage of this coin’s epic journey, while also relieving the owner of any dreams of early retirement. Once again, this thoughtful and formal letter reminds of us a pre-email past, where professional courtesy demanded more than just a quick hashtag or telephone message.
In the end, I offered the estate twenty-five dollars for the envelope and contents, not with expectations of seeking a profit, but rather out of appreciation for the historical context within which this extremely humble coin took its most interesting journey.
Sean Isaacs
Anyone of my own generation who sat in front of the television with a bowl of Frosted Flakes as a kid will be transported to the past by the truly surprising new product release from the Royal Canadian Mint.
I am delighted to announce that the new Looney Tunes (TM) collector coins are now in stock, including a single example of the scarce Gold issue.
Call or stop in today, for details!
Anyone of my own generation who sat in front of the television with a bowl of Frosted Flakes as a kid will be transported to the past by the truly surprising impending product release from the Royal Canadian Mint.
So what theme could possibly have me rubbing my eyes in bewilderment? Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait until May 12th to find out!
In the meantime, I invite anyone with their thinking caps on to email me their best guess. First person to guess the theme (or come closest) will be awarded a free coin of the issue from your friends here at Alliance!
Email: sean@alliancecoin.com
Subject: Mystery Coin Guess
Click to enlarge
First introduced to the world in 1965, our Canadian Flag celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
The Royal Canadian Mint commemorates this national milestone on the 2015 Fine Silver Dollar, available individually in a frosted Proof finish, or in superb full colour as part of the 2015 Fine Silver Proof Set.
And continuing the fine numismatic tradition of highlighting our native birds, the 2015 Specimen Set features a unique Blue Jay One Dollar coin, in place of the standard Loon issue.
Click to see full size
All core products are expected in stock within two weeks – call or email today to have yours set aside!
Background
Read more about the birth of the Canadian flag and protocols around its use on the Canadian Heritage website.
It’s that time of year once again, and we are delighted to announce our annual
3-day Boxing Week Blow-out. Nowhere else in Canada will you find a similar sale in the Coin Business, offering year-end discounts on even the very latest Royal Canadian Mint products.
With hundreds of new and diverse items in stock – including world type coin sets from 150+ countries – we invite you to join us and take advantage of this once-a-year inventory clearance.
Monday, December 29th – 9:30 to 8:00 pm
Tuesday, December 30th – 9:30 to 8:00 pm
Wednesday, December 31st – 9:30 to 6:00 pm
World Coins & Sets
Canadian Decimal Coins
ICCS Certified Coinage
Ancient Coins
Medals & Tokens
Gold & Silver Bullion, Royal Canadian Mint products excluded
Canadian Banknotes
World Banknotes
Collectible Stamps
Supplies, References, Posters
2012 & earlier Royal Canadian Mint Products
Artefacts & Antiquities
Bullion excluded; banknotes not sold below face value!
2013 Royal Canadian Mint Coins
Gold & Diamond Jewellery (already at 60% or more off retail !!)
2014 & 2015 Royal Canadian Mint Coins & Sets
Bullion excluded
Don’t miss out on the phenomenal savings to be found in our exciting collection of door crasher sale items. Below are some highlights from our 2014 Door Crashers; hover over each item for details, or click to launch the slideshow. For a complete list, please download our 2014 Alliance Coin Boxing Week Sale Flyer.
In our current age of Royal Canadian Mint product proliferation – at last count, more than 150 different coins and sets for 2014 alone – it is interesting to contemplate when the actual birth of “Mint Set” production as an industry took place. In other words, when the production of specially-prepared sets of coins went beyond simply VIP or occasional Mint-tour souvenir production, and became a deliberate, annual “product line” for sale to collectors.
Indeed, “Mint Sets” have existed sporadically from the first opening of the Ottawa branch of the Royal Mint in 1908, however today the known actual population of these early sets could be counted on the fingers of both hands, and remain exceptionally rare. Thus, while you could certainly have visited the Mint in 1946, for example, and purchased a “Specimen Set” of the day’s coinage for a marginal premium, very few people appear to have done this. With the exception of a couple important commemorative years, therefore – such as 1908 and 1937 – the production (or rather, the “assembly”) of Mint Sets remained essentially an “on-demand” service.
In my own view, this essentially changed in 1954, with the production of 3,000 “Proof-like” (or mirrored-finish) coin sets, housed in a white cardboard holder and offered for sale to the general public at $2.50. The first of seven consecutive years of sets housed in this format – each with significantly increasing mintages – this simple issue was very much the watershed moment in the Mint’s transition from simply a producer of circulating national coinage to caterer to the Canadian coin collecting public. And indeed, this original “Proof-like” set series continues to this day, albeit having morphed packaging from cardboard holder to sealed pliofilm pouch, beginning in 1961.
In the mid-1960’s, demand for these sets exploded with the introduction of a new obverse portrait of Elizabeth, as well as the elimination of the use of Silver in United States circulating coinage after 1964. Ordering for, and provision of these sets resulted in an absolute frenzy, and of course our Mint has never looked back.
Easily lost in all this discussion of Mint product-mania and the origins of collectible vs circulating coinage, however, is one of the most interesting numismatic enigmas of the post WWII 20th century – the 1953 “Mint Set”.
My use of italics here is quite purposeful. With the ascension of Elizabeth II, and the preparation of new coinage dies, three different qualities of 1953 coinage evolved. The first, a general business-strike, saw more than 110 million coins put into circulation with a typical brilliant finish. Also struck were coins with a finish that would soon come to be know as “Prooflike” – using specially-polished dies, which created coins with true mirrored fields. Lastly, a series of “Specimen” coins were struck, also using specially-prepared dies but resulting in mirrored-finished surfaces highlighted with eye-popping “cameo” (or frosted) portraits. This latter Specimen issue was made available in custom red presentation boxes with plush interiors, and remain quite rare today. But what of the packaging for the special “Prooflike” strikings? This, in my trademark meandering way, brings us at last to the enigma at hand.
In my 25 years of coin dealing, I would regularly come across what appeared in every respect to be a 1953 Proof-like coin set, housed in the standard white cardboard holder, enveloped in cellophane. In almost all cases, the Silver coins in these sets would be fairly heavily-toned, and clearly original in the sense of having been assembled at the Royal Canadian Mint (in contrast to the later popular trend of privately-assembling coins sets in similar purchased cardboard holders). Due to the referenced toning (or “tarnishing”, in non-collector terminology), it was challenging to determine the exact quality of the striking on these coins, however the sets were generally referred to as “Prooflike” sets. I was perplexed, however, by two observations.
First, the general market value of these sets, although varying considerably, never seemed to exceed $100, which seemed abnormally low in comparison to the follow-up 1954 set which retailed at several times this figure. Secondly, The Charlton Standard Catalogue of Canadian Coins began their Proof-like sets listings at 1954, and in recent years the publication acknowledges that the first use of the white cardboard holders was seen in 1953, neither this or any other reference seemed acknowledge the actual existence of 1953 Proof-like issues as a complete set.
So, were these mysterious sets not official Mint-issued products? Alternatively, were they indeed official products but with a subdued Proof-like finish that made them difficult to identify as such, in comparison to standard business-strikes?
In the end, the answer(s) to this question were both profoundly simple and remarkable, in the context of today’s precision design, production and assembly standards maintained by the Royal Canadian Mint.
In the end, these 1953 card-mounted sets were indeed assembled by the Mint, yet in terms of composition, they were done so with whatever coins happened to be on hand at time of assembly! In other words, while the majority of these sets were assembled using perfect business-strike coins that were removed from the ongoing production line, in many cases the sets were put together using not one, but often two or more different qualities of coinage! Thus any given 1953 “white card” set might contain all standard business-strike coinage, or it may contain a mixture of business-strike and true Proof-like coinage. Again, the best of whatever was simply on hand at the time of assembly!
This now explains two enigmas that have faced me. The first, why numismatic references (including Charlton) have chosen to exclude the 1953 issue from their Proof-like set listings. Yes, 1953 Proof-like sets do actually exist, however to list this rare set (which sells for thousands of Dollars) would simply cause far too much confusion (and false hopes!) among collectors who may have a “typical” 1953 set rather than one containing any Prooflike or Specimen components. After all, how to you properly list and value a set that may contain both business-strike and Proof-like coinage within the same holder?? Clearly, the variables to be encountered are just too great, and each and every 1953 set therefore has to be valued based on its own unique merits.
The second enigma that now becomes clear in all of this to me, involves one of these 1953 white-card sets I purchased earlier this summer. Not just a typical 1953 set, and not just yet another intriguing 1953 “combination” set. But rather, the single most unusual (and arguably important) 1953 set I have encountered in 25 years of dealing.
For housed within this pristine, still-sealed white-card mounted set was the following remarkable breakdown of coinage:
Penny – a business-strike
Nickel – an extremely rare Specimen mule striking!
Dime – a business-strike
Quarter – the most stunning Specimen striking I have encountered, with an eye-popping white cameo portrait of Elizabeth
Half Dollar – an extremely rare “Large Date No Should Fold” Specimen striking, only the second example ever certified by ICCS
Dollar – finally, yet another rare and lovely Specimen striking, with distinct frosted cameo
In summary, one could look at the above set as an inconsistently-prepared product that would very likely be rejected by today’s minting quality-control standards. Or, as would be the position of myself and just about every other student of numismatics and history, a precious and truly remarkable enigma from, arguably, the very birth of the Canadian numismatic industry as we have come to know it today. While not every 1953 “white-card” set will yield these same treasures, each will nevertheless be very likely to differ from the next, and warrant its own close attention and scrutiny. How often can you say that, in the context of today’s highly-automated mass production?
Sean Isaacs
Alliance Coin & Banknote 