The Canadian Maple Leaf is the bullion coin of Canada and is issued by the Royal Canadian Mint. It was designed by Walter Ott and features the famous Canadian emblem on its obverse. It is made from either .999 gold or .9999 gold depending on the time on which the coin was issued. The later ones are made from the higher fineness as a sign of Canada’s higher standards in the production of gold coins. The coin is considered to be the purest type of gold coin that is available for collecting today. The coin was first issued in 1979 to compensate for the market for gold coins as the South African Krugerrand was prohibited from being sold for some political issues. However, it can be said to be different from the Krugerrand in that it is made from 24 karat gold unlike the 22 karat Krugerrand.
The Canadian Maple Leaf is available in various weights ranging from one-twentieth of an ounce to one ounce. The face value of the coin starts from one Canadian dollar to fifty dollars but there is also a 1 kilogram coin which has a face value of one million dollars. In 1994 a one-fifteenth of an ounce coin was issued having a two dollar face value but it only came with a limited number of coins issued and were smaller in size which had made them valuable only as additions to jewelries. The coin proved to be not so popular hence the producing of the coin has been stopped.
In 2007, the mint issued a 1-million dollar gold coin which has a purity of 99.999% gold and weighs about one kilogram. It was issued to promote the popularity of the Canadian Maple Leaf and only a few were able to purchase the coin. This was done to promote the newer type of Canadian gold coin which has a higher purity than the past coins that were issued by the mint. It was sold at the price of two-and-a-half million dollars to three million Canadian dollars. The coin was designed by Stanley Witten.
The coin was manufactured with a .999 fineness of gold and was only changed to a .9999 purity in 1982. The purest that was ever produced, one having .99999 fineness was produced to commemorate special events and was particularly difficult to store and handle as it is very soft being pure gold. Most of the Canadian Maple Leafs that were issued from 2007 were usually designed by Stanley Witten and usually portrays Queen Elizabeth II on one of its sides. The coin is officially struck at the Ottawa branch of the Royal Canadian Mint. The high quality of gold that the coin possesses makes it very difficult to handle as it is more subject to being damaged by handling. This has been one of the drawbacks of having a gold coin in such a very high karat but if you are after the quality of the coin, this will not be such a big problem.
The Austrian Philharmonic is one of the purest gold coins that is available in the world today. Gold coin investors prefer the higher quality of gold that can be found in this coin and also the excellent design of the coin. The coin comes in one ounce and is also known by collectors as the Vienna Philharmonics. The coin can be compared in its purity to the Canadian Maple Leaf which also has a high gold content. It has come to be one of the most popular gold coins that is being sold having its peak in sales in the 1990s. The US however is not one of the most avid buyers of the coin and sales are still not doing as well as in the other parts of the world. The Austrian Philharmonic has a higher gold fineness than the Krugerrand and the Gold Eagle coins which makes them more costly than the two.
Gold coins are produced and released yearly from the official Australian Perth Mint. They can either be the in one ounce, half-ounce, quarter of an ounce or even in one kilo depending on the availability in the mint. The most famous Australian gold coin is the Australian Kangaroo which is made from 24 Karat of gold. The more common however comes in one ounce forms which are also Australia’s bullion coins. These gold coins were first introduced by the mint in 1987 and were first known as gold nuggets due to the image that they bore on their reverse side. The image of the gold nugget was taken from the largest nugget found in Australia in 1869. It weighed a total of more than two thousand pounds which was considered to be the largest found in the world.
Buying Krugerrand gold coins from collectors and investors is quite popular due to it being the official gold coin of South Africa and one of the most popular coins in the world today. It was first produced in 1967 and was made from 22 karat gold in order to withstand usage. The coin was used as a legal tender and hence was used for daily purchasing transactions. After a decade of its issuance, the coin became the most bought gold coin in the world which just showed how popular it had become to gold buyers all around the world. Although buying the coin has been prohibited in the United States because of some political issues regarding the South Africa’s policy of apartheid, it remained a popular coin for collectors due to its beauty and durability.