1/10 oz Canadian Maple Leaf gold coin (various years)

Established in 1908, the Royal Canadian Mint has in the past couple of decades been one of the market leaders  in applying  new technologies in the production of gold and silver bullion coins. Not only did it create the first legal tender silver and gold bullion coins that contained a purity of four  nines,  they  went  one  step  further  in  1998  with  the  introduction  of  a  special  edition  gold bullion coin that contained 1.02233 troy ounces  of 99.999% (five nines) pure gold. The  mint’s quest in perfecting high purity gold coins did not stop at the one-ounce weight mark. In fact, it reached new heights in 2007 by unveiling a Gold Maple Leaf coin that weighed 100 kilograms, had a gold purity of .99999, and came with a face value of one million Canadian dollars.

In 2014 the Royal Canadian Mint set a new standard in coin security with the introduction of its latest innovation called “Bullion DNA Anti-Counterfeiting Technology” which includes a process where a unique microscopic security mark is minted onto every coin. The centre of the security mark contains the number “14” (for the year 2014) and is only visible under strong magnification. This new technology adds another layer of protection against counterfeiting, and all Gold Maple Leaf coins minted from 2014 onwards will contain this new security feature.