lol; @Siberian Man , yes you do, I think I've been looking at your awesome world coins since long before I joined CT!
I must say that old Canadian coins - is the one of my favorite parts of my collection. Your coins are very... very graceful.
I love Canada! I visited Ottawa last month and toured Parliament and the Ottawa mint (where they make the Gold and Silver Maple Leafs). The highlight was seeing a massive raw coil of gold ready to enter the planchet cutting machine. I think the tour guide said the roll cost 3 million... or more... foggy memory... In one of the minting rooms, loads of Silver Maple Leaf blanks rolled by on a conveyor belt. I hoped to see where they made the polymer bills, but everyone shrouded this process in absolute secrecy... they only said that the bills were made "in a secret location," although it sounded like that "secret location" was somewhere in Ottawa... A few years ago I toured the Winnipeg Mint, so I have the Canadian mints covered. Both warrant visits and both have amazing tours, displays and gift shops. Winnipeg strikes the circulating coins and Ottawa mints the Commemoratives and Bullion (and apparently the super duper double-dog secret polymer bills). I've shared this pre-confederation large cent elsewhere before, but it is Canadian... and hence topical...
