Earlier today I took my son down to the Royal Canadian Mint store on Granville Street to check out the world's first 10 kilogram 99.999% pure gold coin! Pictured on it's face is inimitable Haida sculptor and master goldsmith Bill Reid's iconic piece, The Spirit of Haida Gwaii, which you're familiar with if you've ever looked on the back of a Canadian $20 bill or been to the Vancouver International Airport where you'll have seen the bronze version of it in real life. Another version of it lives at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C. and the original plaster pattern of it is housed at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Quebec.
We tried to find a way in over the glass so we could touch the coin for good luck but no dice! At least having Arlo in the picture gives you an idea of how big this coin is.
180 mm in diameter, it's made up of a total of 321 ounces of the purest gold ever to be used in a 10 kilogram gold coin. Extra "high relief" is used in the design meaning that the artwork sticks out quite further than on most other coins, almost as an homage to Bill's original sculptures.
Only 15 editions of this coin which has a face value of $100,000 will be produced. The actual pricing is based on the price of gold the day you order it as well as a fee on top to pay for the production of the coin. I inquired how much the coin would cost to order as of noon today and was told that it'd be somewhere around the $650,000 mark. That's about half of the average price of a single detached home in the City Of Vancouver. Whoa.
Below are a couple of images they provided to us showing the artwork.
If you're interested in going down and seeing it in person you can pop down tomorrow, Sunday October 23, to the Royal Canadian Mint store at Georgia and Granville downtown from 11AM-5PM. HERE's a link to a page on the Mint site that has all of the details about this limited edition coin. Maybe they'll make a giant piggybank next!
