Friday, March 5, 2010

Olympic Medals

Still sorting through pictures from the Olympic Games for you.

One of the most popular Pavillions of the Games was the one put together by the Royal Canadian Mint.

The main attraction for this Pavillion was the fact that, as makers of the Olympic Medals, the Mint had those medals on display.

And not only were the medals on public display, but for the first time in Games history the public could physically handle and touch the Olympic Medals.

As a result the RC Mint Pavillion had daily lineups of 6-8 hours long and was one of the most sought out locals.








Each medal is unique in that the front of the medal contains a portion of these designs. If the Canadian hockey teams held their gold medals together, you would actually be able to see this pattern form...


The Bronze Medal




The Silver Medal






The Gold Medal






Three medals on display but not for touching


Also on display was this huge gold coin put out by the Mint a couple of years ago.

At the time is was marketed at the "Million Dollar Gold Maple Leaf". The face value is one million dollars, but the actual cost (at the time) was about $2.8 million dollars. At today's prices, the coin is worth just under $4 million dollars.

The coin is 21 inches in diameter and contains 100 kilograms of gold (3,528 ounces or 220 pounds).

The coin was conceived as a showpiece to promote the RCM's new line of 99.999 percent pure, one-ounce gold maple leaf bullion coins...






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