Canadian silver dollar

The Canadian silver dollar (French: Dollar argent du Canada) was first issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 1935 to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of King George V. The coin's reverse design was sculpted by Emanuel Hahn and portrays a voyageur and a person of Indigenous descent paddling a birch-bark canoe.

1967 marked the end of the silver dollar as a business strike, or a coin issued for circulation.

After 1967, the dollar coin was made of nickel, except for non-circulating commemorative issues for the collector market, which continue to contain silver.

It was then promptly moved to the Bank of Canada's National Currency Collection with its silver counterpart.

[6] Eventually, the coin made its way back to Canada after being auctioned off for US$690,000 to George H. Cook, a renowned Canadian collector,[7] on January 13, 2003.

[8] After his death in 2018, Cook's collection was auctioned off during the American Numismatic Association World's Fair of Money in Chicago, where it was bought one final time by Sandy Campbell and Ian Laing for $734,000 after a 20% buyer's fee.

[2] As part of the National Currency Collection, it rejoined its silver twin and lead counterpart for the first time in nearly 110 years since their mintage.

[9] In 1947, India gained its independence from the British Empire and as a result, the inscription "IND:IMP:" needed to be removed from the Obverse of the 1948 Silver Dollar.

Eventually the new Obverse dies did arrive, and they began to mint the 1948 dollars midway through the year.

[citation needed]) A technical problem emanated during the 1950s that was to plague the Royal Canadian Mint.

Any trace of the bottom water line disqualified a coin from being considered an Arnprior type.

In addition to removing the water lines, this modified reverse was different because the image of the canoe on the coin had a larger islet tip at the right end.

[11] In December 1955, the Royal Canadian Mint made up an order of 2,000 silver dollars for a firm in Arnprior, Ontario.

[13] Later on in the year, the Royal Canadian Mint's Chief engraver Thomas Shingles lowered the relief of the model and strengthened the shoulder and hair details.

Although 1965 would mark a change in the effigy of Queen Elizabeth II, the year would offer five different varieties of the dollar.

Voyageur [16] [17] [18] Note: 1981 was the first year that the RCM issued two different qualities of silver dollars.