Beavers and caribou may be synonymous with Canadian coinage, but it is the "mule" that is becoming prominent in Canada’s commemorative Olympic coinage of 2007. The Oct. 24 launch of up to 22 million Alpine Skiing 25-cent coins was marred by the announcement from the RCM two days later that about 52,000 coins in collector options were discovered with a mule error: the mating of a 2008-dated obverse to a reverse bearing the Glen Green design of a skier racing downhill. A 2007 obverse should have been used with the Alpine Skiing reverse. A mule results from a pairing of dies not intended to be used together. All 40,000 painted versions of the coin being sold through Petro-Canada stations bear the mule error. Approximately 12,000 sets of 14 circulating commemorative coins for the 2010 Vancouver Games have the error, according to Alexandre Reeves, manager of communications at the RCM. "The error was detected when the coin collections were being assembled," Reeves said. "Mint officials were able to establish the number of ‘error’ sets that had been distributed through quality assurance procedures. Some are sold by now; others are still in the dealer network. Sorry, I can’t be more precise than that." The RCM on Feb. 23 released coin board holders containing Uncirculated examples of 14 of the 17 circulating commemoratives; some of these sets contain the error, Reeves said. Reeves said the RCM will not withdraw the error coins. This is the second mule error discovered in Canada’s circulating 25-cent coin program that honors the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games. An unknown number of the Wheelchair Curling 25-cent coins, which were released July 11, were discovered to have the wrong obverse (Coin World, Oct. 1 issue). Canada began issuing a series of 17 circulating commemorative coins celebrating the 2010 Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Games Feb. 23. Four commemorative 25-cent coins depicting the Olympic sports of curling, ice hockey, biathlon and alpine skiing carry the Vancouver Games logo, while the Wheelchair Curling coin is intended to depict the Paralympics logo. On the Wheelchair Curling mule error, the Vancouver Games logo appears instead of the Paralympic logo. In the case of those mules, the coins were included in the 2007 Special Edition Uncirculated Set. Reeves said: "The scope of our Olympic program is unprecedented. It has raised our production volumes. We are reviewing processes with our production team. We want to take steps to make sure we don’t have issues like this again, [and] we haven’t discovered other errors in our plant’s inventory." Coin World asked Reeves if the remaining circulating coins that have already been produced but not released have been searched. He confirmed that the RCM did not find any other errors in the multiyear inventory. He said, however, "Since the beginning we’ve looked at coins and inspected them." The most recent mule coins were produced in the Mint’s Winnipeg facility, on presses dedicated to the numismatic Olympic coin items, Reeves said. All other Alpine Skiing coins in the RCM’s other collector products, including the first-day coin and special wrap rolls, bear the correct date, according to the RCM. Coin World has not physically examined an example of the error. CW A MULE ERROR version of Canada’s Alpine Skiing 25-cent coin, which shows the Olympic sport of alpine skiing on the reverse, right, should bear an obverse with the 2007 date. Instead, a small quantity of mule errors carries the obverse design featuring the 2008 date, left. Images are representative, and not of a specific example of the error coin.
