Bank of Canada 1912-14 Gold Coin Hoard: Statistics Available?

Artist

Lately I have grown interested in the Canadian 1912-14 Gold Coin Issues -- does anyone know if statistics are available on the 30,000 coins that were released? How that number breaks down by year / denomination?

Thanks in advance!

MasonG

Found this:

A summary of the coins available by date is shown below.

Premium Hand-Selected 6-Coin Set (140 sets)
Premium Hand-Selected 1912, 1913 and 1914 $5 single gold coins
(291 coins)
Premium Hand-Selected 1913 and 1914 $10 single gold coins (4,869 coins)
Hand-Selected 1912, 1913 and 1914 $5 single gold coins (5,050 coins)
Hand-Selected 1912, 1913 and 1914 $10 single gold coins (18,950 coins)

TomB

I adore these coins and have written two articles for my website about them. They are linked for you below-

tbnumismatics.com/canadian-gold-reserve-coinage-1912-1914.html
tbnumismatics.com/thats-a-wrap-canadian-gold-reserve-coinage-melted.html

At one point I had quite a few of these in inventory for collectors, but currently I have none listed on my site and only a few in my own safe deposit box.

YQQ

I believe these were promoted way too much at the time. also some dealers were given first pick I believe.
AND, how can a outfit like the RCM, suddenly discover that they have a "unknown treasure of such a magnitude within their premises?
IMO, the right thing to do would have been to melt the "find" to preserve the value of the legitimately issued coins in 1912-14. I have one of each, as part of the collection, but more??? No thanks.
OH, how will one tell the difference unless the slab says so?

BillDugan1959

@YQQ said:
I believe these were promoted way too much at the time. also some dealers were given first pick I believe.
AND, how can a outfit like the RCM, suddenly discover that they have a "unknown treasure of such a magnitude within their premises?
IMO, the right thing to do would have been to melt the "find" to preserve the value of the legitimately issued coins in 1912-14. I have one of each, as part of the collection, but more??? No thanks.
OH, how will one tell the difference unless the slab says so?

I believe that the fact that the Canadian Treasury had this large group of fives and tens in gold was known for several decades before the release. Donald J. Hoppe seemed to be aware of it when he wrote his well-known book on gold coins in the 1960s. The Canadian fives and tens in gold never did "fit" into the Canadian coin system as set up before the Second World War. It is not a wonder that they streamed back to the Treasury.

It seems that the large bulk of these historic coins were melted down quickly and the gold was sold to China. Rush order. It seems like the coin collecting fraternity was rather fortunate that what was saved, was actually saved.

Artist

TomB -- Thank you for the reply! Your articles included the exact information I was hoping to discover.

For the past couple weeks, my lady has been watching a Canadian period-drama show on Hulu. I love sitting and being with her, but I find this particular show fairly dry, and so to make the time more interesting, I became curious about what coins these characters might have in their pockets. This to say that I only recently became aware of this wonderful series (the coins, not the show), and of the fascinating bank hoard. I have long wanted to add some Klondike gold to my collection, but even the very few private tokens from this region seem rather spurious. Now I think 1912 $5 or $10 may be in my future.

WillieBoyd2

I bought this one from a Canadian coin dealer in January 2014:

Canada $10 1914 Gold

I just liked the design, it looked so "British".

I later bought a Canada $5 1913 which was not in as good shape

TomB

I'm glad you discovered this cool niche of Canadian numismatics and am glad I could help. These coins weren't newly discovered, but as BillDugan has mentioned, their existence was known for decades and I believe the overhanging (though not then-obtainable) supply of the coins was baked into the market price of available specimens. I didn't care for how the RCM distributed the pieces, but the coins themselves are terrific and being able to hold one of these allows one to see what the surfaces of gold that has sat for approximately a century in original bags might look like.

dan_marinelli

Hand selected that I got from RCM. A bit baggy but I like it just for the historical significance and it's Canada mined gold.