How could I possibly resist a post about this one?

The Royal Canadian Mint has issued the first coin with a $1 Million Dollar face value.

This coin is 100 KG of pure, 0.99999 Fine Gold. That’s 3,215 troy ounces of gold in a single coin. As reported on the Coin Collector’s Blog and goldeneaglecoin.com:

At 100 kilograms (3215 troy ounces) and 53 centimeters (21 inches) it is the largest legal tender coin in existence. It will be made of .99999 pure gold making this coin the purest gold coin on the market. The obverse of the coin will feature Queen Elizabeth II with the reverse will feature a “new, elegant maple leaf design.”

This looks like an incredible showpiece for a new process that allows the Canadian mint to issue gold coins at a whole new level of purity that should be appreciated by operations manager: five 9s worth, or 99.999% pure. Right now, the purest coins on the market are 0.9999 fine, including the previous Canadian Maple Leaf and US Gold Buffalo coins.

From the press release:

The Gold Maple Leaf bullion coin was first launched in September 1979, as a one ounce investment coin, the first coin to be struck of pure gold. The Gold Maple Leaf coin was 999 pure until 1982, when its purity was raised to 9999, setting a new benchmark for gold bullion coins. The RCM has maintained its tradition of leadership in the gold bullion industry by raising the bar once more, to 99999.

This is quite a coin. The gold value alone is worth over $2.25 Million US dollars, based on a gold price of $700 per ounce. It sells for approximately $2.7 Million dollars.

According to this MSNBC article, three of the coins have already been sold. The article also states that the coin is 20 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick, weighing over 220 pounds. Apparently, it takes 6 weeks to manufacture a single coin of this size and purity.

“They’re not doing this because there is huge demand for 100-kilo gold coins,” Bret Evans, editor of Canadian Coin News said Saturday. “They’re doing it because it gives them some bragging rights in having the largest purest gold coin in the world.”

If you are looking for gift ideas for me, look no further. 🙂