Volume 50#26

April 9 – April 22, 2013

The Royal Canadian Mint’s November releases feature an assortment of gold and silver coins celebrating Canadian symbols, history and cultural traditions. Highlights include Lady Peace, Canada’s coat of arms, a one-kilogram silver Maple Leaf and gold issues featuring the yin-yang symbol and Lunar Year of the Goat. (RCM image)

Wolf joins growing pack of $20-for-$20 coins

The wraps are off on the seventh coin in the Royal Canadian Mint’s popular $20-for-$20 program, a series of silver coins being sold for face value. The newest coin in the series, the second of this year, depicts a wolf running toward the viewer. The coins are struck on .9999 silver blanks with a weight of 7.96 grams, or a quarter troy ounce. The reverse has the inscriptions “20 DOLLARS,” “2013,” “CANADA” and “FINE SILVER ARGENT PUR 9999.” The obverse has the Susanna Blunt effigy of Queen Elizabeth II. Continue reading →

Features

U.S. Mint salutes five-star generals

Page 17

Circulating euros a good source of errors and varieties

Page 20

Records fall for Canadian banknotes

Page 21

Russian Sochi Games coins available from RCM

Page 28

Regulars

Focus on paper money

Page 22

Are you buying or selling?

Page 27

Check out the shows in your area

Page 30

Editorial

The transformation of transactions

The truth is, if I had to pick the single most important change in the hobby, it would be the enthusiastic adoption of third-party certification. When I first came to CCN, certified coins were put in slabs, which had a negative connotation. Collectors smirked that coins would get resubmitted until they reached the highest plausible grade. Most numismatists believed that they could grade their own coins, and frowned on the “absurd” claims of graders that a certified coin would be easier to sell. But that is exactly what happened. Collectors, who at first thought that the best grading could do was confirm their opinion, came to respect third-party graders.

Continue reading →