Coin series including the Chinese Lunar Zodiac, Vignettes of Royalty, Playing Card Money and Crystal Snowflakes and new NHL© coin and gift products join the team

The Royal Canadian Mint today issued its latest release of collector coins and gift products for 2008—just in time for the holiday season. Examples from this impressive selection include: gold and silver coins celebrating the Year of the Ox; new gold and silver Moon Mask coins; an ultra-high relief King George V Vignettes of Royalty $15 silver coin; a new 99.99% pure silver Holiday Carols coin; as well as innovative keepsakes honouring Canada’s beloved NHL© teams, featuring team jerseys, dual image logos and goalie masks. The public can purchase these new products as of today.

“As the Royal Canadian Mint continues to celebrate its centennial year, we are proud to issue new products showcasing the creativity, quality and innovation which have been our hallmarks since 1908,” said President and CEO of the Royal Canadian Mint, Ian E. Bennett. “Collectors and gift givers alike will find many exciting choices among the collector coins and gift products offered just in time for the holiday and hockey seasons.”

Here are the highlights of the Mint’s newest selection of products:

2009 LUNAR HOLOGRAM GOLD AND LUNAR CAMEO SILVER COINS – YEAR OF THE OX
The annual tradition of celebrating the Chinese Lunar Zodiac with gold and silver commemorative coin releases is alive and well as the Mint pays tribute to the Year of the Ox in 2009.

Both Year of the Ox coins are designed by Canadian artist Harvey Chan. The Lunar Cameo Coin is sterling silver and bears a face value of 15 dollars. It is the final instalment of the 12-coin series begun by the Mint in 1998. It features an octagon– shaped gold-plated cameo of a stylized ox surrounded by the 12 animals of the Chinese lunar calendar. This coin is the only 2009 issue bearing the former effigy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, which graced Canada’s coinage from 1990 to 2003. Limited to a worldwide mintage of 48,888, it retails for $88.88 CDN. (more…)

Certified Limited Editions of the World’s Purest Official Mint Coin

Santa Monica, Calif. - August 4, 2008 - Goldline International, Inc. today announced it has acquired the very first uniquely designed 2008 .99999 pure gold one-ounce Maple Leaf coins struck by the Royal Canadian Mint. These coins have been independently certified by Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS), one of the premier coin grading services, to be the first seventeen hundred 2008 .99999 pure Maple Leaf coins. The overwhelming majority of these “First Strike” coins are graded in Superb Gem Brilliant Uncirculated (BU) condition. Each graded coin will be sonically sealed in a rigid plastic container to preserve its mint condition. The PCGS certification includes a unique serial number for each coin.

The .99999 Maple Leaf was introduced by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007 as the purest gold coin struck by a government mint. The original Maple Leaf coin was first minted in 1979 and contained .999 pure gold. In 1982, the Royal Canadian Mint increased the Maple Leaf’s purity to .9999 (or 24 karat), setting a new benchmark for gold bullion coins. The Royal Canadian Mint raised the standard once again with its .99999 Maple Leaf. The .99999 Maple Leaf features a new, elegant maple leaf gracing the reverse and a 12-sided design.

“When Canada increased the gold content of the Maple Leaf to .99999 fine, it set an unsurpassed standard for gold investment products,” said Mark Albarian, President and Chief Executive Officer of Santa Monica-based Goldline International, Inc. “The independently graded and certified 2008 First Strike .99999 Maple Leafs offer collectors and the investment community a special gold coin at a time when investors are seeking a traditional safe haven hedge against inflation and a falling dollar.”

For more information about these 2008 First Strike Maple Leaf gold coins, please visit www.99999mapleleaf.com or call 1-800-827-4653.

Playing Card Money Series and Crystal Raindrop showcase unique new coins; popular offerings continue

Ottawa, Ontario – History and innovative design combine to produce yet another outstanding series of Royal Canadian Mint (RCM) collector coins with the introduction of fine silver rectangular coins emulating a long-lost currency of our past: New France’s playing card money. The innovation and design creativity continues with a new crystal-embedded fine silver raindrop coin, a new Royal Effigies Series coin featuring King Edward VII, as well as gold and silver coins celebrating yet another Canadian Achievement, the world-famous IMAX film standard, among several others captivating themes.

“As the Royal Canadian Mint celebrates its centennial and as Canada celebrates other historical milestones such as the 400th anniversary of the city of Quebec, we are proud that our collector products are telling the story of Canada in fascinating new forms”, said Ian E. Bennett, President and CEO of the Royal Canadian Mint.

“Our artisans and experts have once again succeeded in creating outstanding treasures in silver and gold which capture the imagination of coin collectors and gift givers everywhere”.

$15 PLAYING CARD MONEY SERIES – JACK OF HEARTS The days when Canadian legal tender displayed the effigies of anonymous kings and queens are a fascinating twist of Canadian history. As New France found itself short of circulation coinage in 1685, the government of the day demonstrated classic Canadian resourcefulness by seizing all playing cards in the colony and issuing officially signed cards as currency. This temporary measure continued until the British conquest of 1759. The RCM rekindles the “can do” aura of playing card money with a $15 sterling silver Jack of Hearts, the first in a new series of painted rectangular collector coins featuring a selectively gold-plated rim. Only 25,000 of these treasures of our past have been carefully crafted and designed from artwork preserved by Library and Archives Canada. This coin retails for a suggested $89.95 CDN. (more…)

The Royal Canadian Mint received a welcome accolade from its peers when the Mint Directors Conference, holding its 25 th annual meeting in Busan, Korea, presented it with the Most Technologically Advanced Circulation Coin Award for its 25-cent breast cancer coloured circulation coin. This is the second honour earned by this inspirational and innovative circulation coin, which was previously recognized in May 2007 as the “Best New Coin” by the International Association of Currency Affairs.

“The Royal Canadian Mint makes a great effort to be the best Mint in the world and it is immensely rewarding when our efforts are validated by our peers” said Ian E. Bennett, RCM President and CEO. “I welcome this award as the Mint marks its centennial year, and as my fellow employees and I proudly celebrate a century of innovation and achievement.”

The 25-cent breast cancer circulation coin features the iconic pink ribbon, the symbol of hope and awareness in the effort to create a future without breast cancer. Thirty million breast cancer coins entered into circulation beginning on April 1, 2006. These were the second coloured circulation coins to be produced by the Royal Canadian Mint’s Winnipeg facility, following the popular 25-cent poppy coin in the fall of 2004. Considered one of the most innovative mints in the world, the Mint has pioneered and perfected the technology process to apply colour to circulation coins.

About the Mint Directors Conference

The Mint Directors Conference (MDC) was organized for the purpose of exchanging information on all monetary matters and related legal, economic, technical, administrative and numismatic questions of interest to the minting industry. The MDC provides a forum for co-operating on the study of current issues and mutually agreeable solutions. The MDC also promotes study and research into all coin-related matters, including the implications of new means of payment

By Doug Andrews, World Coin News

Remaining competitive internationally, leveraging off technology and exploiting opportunities as world metal prices continue to rise will be the objectives of the Royal Canadian Mint, says its president and chief executive officer, Ian Bennett.

The Mint recently announced a record C$30.1 million profit for 2007.

“Our target had been growth, now it is growth and profit,” Bennett said. “We doubled our profit last year, which was a great achievement,” Bennett noted in an exclusive interview with World Coin News.

The mint’s use of its multi-ply plating process for circulating coinage is essential to attracting contracts from foreign governments.

“This allows us to produce coins at much lower cost than other mints, and it is part of our medium term plan, to exploit our competitive advantage as much as we can. Our goals are tough to achieve in this economy and with the rising Canadian dollar, but it’s something that we have to strive to do,” Bennett said.

Part of the RCM strategy is to invest in replacement of all the presses in its Winnipeg production facility with higher speed equipment, and to expand plating capacity. Since 2005 the plant has doubled its plating volume and has licensed its patented technology to leading suppliers, including Jarden Zinc Products Inc. of Greeneville, Tenn. The Canadian Mint is aggressively pursuing other partnerships in its quest for more foreign business.

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