Canadian Silver Coins
Want to buy Canadian silver coins? Read on for facts and info on the coins minted by the Royal Canadian mint and find out about the value of each different Canadian silver coin…
The minting of Canadian silver coins was initiated by the Royal Canadian mint in 1935. This year was to mark the silver jubilee of King George V and it was in his honor that the first ever Canadian silver coin was minted. Emmanuel Hahn is the artist credited for developing the design that is sculpted on the reverse side of the coin. The 1935 Canadian silver coin depicts a portrait of a Voyageur along with a birch bark canoe and aboriginal paddling. The coin also has some faint lines in the background which are meant to represent Northern lights. This silver coin continued to be minted and used up until 1986.
Canadian Silver Coin Variety
The original Canadian silver dollar coin issued in 1935 had a total of 10 varieties. Each of these varieties was then classified into three different categories. The first of these was the pointed seven followed by the blunt seven and then the most popular of them all, the Maple leaf issue.
There were two styles under the category of the pointed seven variety. These coins depicted a tall figure that had a lower tail which pointed back towards the right. Some of the coins also had a small dot placed close to the seven. However this is believed to be an imperfection in the particular die that was used for creating this coin. The six varieties of the pointed seven Canadian silver coin include the original pointed seven, pointed seven with a double punched 4, pointed seven with a dot near the seven, pointed seven with a triple punched HP and similarly the pointed seven with a double and quadruple punched HP.
The blunt seven variety featured the image of a seven but this was much smaller in size in comparison to the above mentioned variety. Furthermore the lower tail in the design is pointing straight downwards which differs from the pointed seven. The first Maple leaf issue was minted in 1947 which featured the Maple leaf near the seven. The other Maple leaf issue was also minted in the same year but had an additional double punched HP stamped right below the effigy of King George.
The Royal Canadian mint was subjected to a technical problem that arose in the 1950s which led to a number of unique varieties of Canadian silver coins. One of the productions that came about during this period of time depicted the canoe on the Canadian Voyageur Dollar having four shallow water lines at its end. However when the coins were polished some of these lines disappeared as a result. This caused variations in the designs that were being minted every year. As a result coin collectors started assigning different values to the different varieties of the same Canadian silver coin depending upon the number of lines that they had. Hence a Canadian silver coin which had perfect water lines was valued differently from one that had partial lines.
Similar accidental varieties continued to appear during the entire decade. Today these unique varieties of Canadian silver coins are considered to have immense collectorship value. At the same time the Orthodox Canadian silver coins are also highly sought after by coin collectors all around the world.