Royal Canadian Mint Throws Collectors a Curve with New Convex Coin Celebrating Canadian Baseball History

Plus, “Light Bulb” Privy-Marked Silver Maple Leaf bullion boin with Mintshield^TM technology now available

The Royal Canadian Mint has crafted a curved silver coin to commemorate North America’s first officially recorded baseball game. The scene, which played out in a Beachville, Ontario pasture on June 4, 1838 as local amateur teams faced off in the first-ever baseball game to be documented in North America, is classically engraved over the convex surface of the 2018 $25 Fine Silver Coin – 180th Anniversary of Canadian Baseball, designed by artist Steve Hepburn. Framed by an unmistakable baseball stitching pattern, players from Beachville and nearby Zorra show how the game was played 180 years ago, without gloves, in a moment that remains the pride of a small but significant corner of southern Ontario. This great collector’s item, along with many other historic and eye-catching coins, is available as of today.

A different take on history appears on the $20 Fine Silver Coin – Royal Portrait, where artist Maurice Gervais has adapted famed photographer Cecil Beaton’s portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II gazing at her first-born child HRH Charles, Prince of Wales. The official 1948 photo is faithfully reproduced in its original black and white tones and is bordered by a selectively gold-plated wreath of maple leaves, topped with a stylized version of St. Edward’s Crown.

Other collector products in the Mint’s latest catalogue include:

• The 2018 $20 Fine Silver Coin – 30th Anniversary of the SML, featuring double-incuse striking and edge lettering;
• The 2018 $8 Fine Silver Coin – Chinese Blessings, a rectangular shaped coin designed by Aries Cheung and featuring red and gold banners emblazoned with calligraphic symbols of good fortune;
• The 2018 $200 Pure Gold Coin – Bighorn Sheep, designed by Curtis Atwater and crafted of 5-9s pure gold;
• The 2018 $20 Fine Silver Coin – Geometric Fauna Series: Grey Wolves, the first coin in a new series blending low-poly art and realist illustrations by Claude Thivierge;
• The 2018 $20 Fine Silver Coin – Nocturnal by Nature: The Howling Wolf, featuring black rhodium-enhanced artwork also designed by Claude Thivierge;
• The 2018 $20 Fine Silver Coin – Majestic Wildlife: White-Tailed Deer, featuring a colored design by artist Maurade Baynton;
• The 2018 $20 Fine Silver Coin – Little Creatures: Monarch Caterpillar, designed by Maurice Gervais and featuring a colorful Murano glass caterpillar;
• The 2018 5-Ounce Fine Silver Coin – Big Coin Series: 5-Cent Coin, with selective rose gold plating;
• The 2018 Legacy of the Dime Fine Silver Coin Set featuring large-sized, selectively gold-plated replicas of all five reverse designs to have appeared throughout the history of the 10-cent circulation coin;
• The 2018 $10 Fine Silver Coin – The Common Loon: Beauty and Grace, illustrated by artist Arnold Nogy;
• The 2018 $20 Fine Silver Coin – Ancient Canada: Marrella, based on a fossil specimen from Alberta’s Royal Tyrrell Museum;
• The 2018 $20 Pure Silver Coin – Norse Figureheads: Viking Voyage, last of a three-coin series and designed by Neil Hamelin;
• The 2018 $10 Fine Silver Coin – Star Trek^TM: Voyager, featuring another famed starship of the enduring pop culture phenomenon, in colour and enhanced by glow-in-the-dark technology;
• The 2018 $3 Fine Silver Coin – The Thirteen Teachings from Grandmother Moon: Sugar Moon, designed by Frank Polson; and,
• The crystal-enhanced 2018 $5 Fine Silver Coin – Birthstones: April, featuring a mandala-inspired diamond design by artist Pandora Young.

Mintages, pricing and full background information on each coin can be found on the “Shop” tab of www.mint.ca.

The products can be ordered directly from the Mint at 1-800-267-1871 in Canada, 1-800-268-6468 in the US, or online at www.mint.ca. The coins are also available at the Royal Canadian Mint’s boutiques in Ottawa and Winnipeg, as well as through our global network of dealers and distributors, including participating Canada Post outlets.

And, to highlight the influence of Canada in the invention of the incandescent lightbulb and Thomas Edison’s successful commercialization of a technology which forever changed the world, the Mint has issued a new privy-marked Silver Maple Leaf (SML) bullion coin. This new silver bullion coin also features Mintshield^TM surface protection, a breakthrough innovation against white spotting, which made its debut on the 2018 SML.

Limited to a world-wide mintage of 50,000, this unique 1 oz., 99.99% pure silver coin is now available through official distributor Manfra, Tordella and Brookes (MTB). Its reverse features the classic sugar maple reverse design, in a reverse proof finish, which has become the signature of the Royal Canadian Mint’s Maple Leaf family of bullion coins. Beneath this iconic emblem is a privy mark illustrating the design of the first commercial lightbulb, introduced to the world in the 1880s by Thomas Edison, who was inspired by the pioneering research of Canadians Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans. The obverse of this coin features the effigy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II designed by Canadian artist Susanna Blunt in 2003.

In keeping with a distribution model common to the world’s major issuers of bullion coins, the Mint does not sell bullion directly to the public. Interested buyers are encouraged to contact a reputable bullion dealer to order Royal Canadian Mint bullion coins.

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About the Royal Canadian Mint

The Royal Canadian Mint is the Crown Corporation responsible for the minting and distribution of Canada’s circulation coins. An ISO 9001-2008 certified company, the Mint is recognized as one of the largest and most versatile mints in the world, offering a wide range of specialized, high quality coinage products and related services on an international scale. For more information on the Mint, its products and services, visit www.mint.ca.