The seventeenth and latest in the very popular series of face-value coins issued by the Royal Canadian Mint for Canada is now available for sale and depicts what has been the mints highest profile star, the superhero son of Krypton, Superman. Continuing the extremely popular $20 for $20 range of four-nines silver ¼ oz coins, this one will no doubt sell out in relatively short order, even with sales limited to five per household, and to US and Canadian households only.

The coin design itself doesn’t seem to be picking up very high reviews on the Royal Canadian Mint website, currently sitting at just 1.5/5.0, although only from 8 reviews. Perhaps expectations are running a little high, but how realistic those are given this is a specimen-finish bullion coin for $20 are questionable. We think it’s a decent design, but not a brilliant choice of image, certainly not up to the standard of the quite brilliant Bugs Bunny coin released prior to this one.

As ususal, the obverse carries the Susanna Blunt effigy of Queen Elizabeth II, and the coin ships mounted to a colourful card with an unserialised certificate of authenticity.$20.

$20 FOR $20 PROGRAMME

The $20 for $20 program started back in 2011 with a coin depicting the inevitable Canadian Maple Leaf. One more release in 2011 was followed in 2012 by four more, and in subsequent years that release schedule has been maintained. Up until the end of 2014, all the coins were very Canadian in nature, depicting icons of culture and nature associated with the nation.

For 2015 the coins have become more closely associated with other Royal Canadian Mint releases. Back in March we had a FIFA Womens World Cup coin, in May a Looney Tunes issue, and now we’ve a Superman one. An interesting development which is clearly broadening appeal given the 200-250k mintage of all of the earlier coins has ballooned to 350,000 for the last two.

There is one more coin due in 2015, probably in October as there’s never been a release later than that in previous years, and hopefully it will stick with the new trend towards subjects of wider appeal.

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SPECIFICATION