A new "Darksider" with a stupid question...no really it is stupid

ufdah

Hello All and greetings from Iowa...I have a really stupid question (as layed out in my title for this message)

And let the nonsense begin:

I have always collected Canadian coinage and on the rare occasion i would pick up a Canadian 5$ Maple (silver bullion 1 ounce)
now the American silver dollar is a 1$ silver bullion 1 ounce coin. Is the dollar value given on the coin from a standard years ago where perhaps 1 dollar Amercan equaled 5 dollars Canadian....or is the dollar value just a random value they mint the coin for?
Another question i had was i heard the Canadian Silver Maple was purer than the Amercian silver dollar...(canadian .999 and the American is somewhere around .950 silver) Is that true or what is the silver content percentage?

oh well don't beat me up too bad...just curious
thanks

JamesMurray

Canada's bullion is purer , both silver and gold. In the case of silver the US is .999 and Canada's .9999 , same deal with gold. I don't know why they put the denominations on that they do. Australia's went from $5 to $15 on the gold coins but didn't increase or decrease gold content.With britain the crown coin is now a five pound coin whereas it began life as 5 shillings. I don't really know.

Sapyx

This certainly isn't a stupid question.

Governments feel obliged to put a face value on their bullion coins because if they have no face value, they're not really "coins", and collectors wouldn't want them so much. But the face value which governments give to their bullion coins is entirely up to the governments concerned. Historically, the face value of a circulating coin was higher than it's bullion content. It took a while for governments to realise that the lower the face value they put on their bullion coins, the better, because it would then be less likely that they'd have to redeem them - something they wouldn't want to encourage, since the only reason people would cash their coins in would be if the bullion value fell below the face value.

Australian Kookaburras were originally issued at face value $5 for an ounce dated 1990. A couple of years later in 1992 when it looked like silver might actually get close to $5 per ounce, the face value was reduced to $1 for an ounce.

Pokermandude

In order for a coin to be a coin, it has to have a denomination on it. The face value on bullion coins is mostly just cosmetic, as the value of the metal generally outweighs that face value by a large amount.

ajaan

<< <i>In order for a coin to be a coin, it has to have a denomination on it. >>


Not always true, at least in the past. Many British/English coins had no denomination on them.

ufdah

Well thanks for the information...just kept wondering about it and i didn't have any real answers. I primarily don't collect bullion issue coinage but since the price of silver has delayed alot of my purchases in Canadian 50cent pieces I find myself intrigued a little with bullion coins and why they are even considered a collectable, they have different mint mark privys and dates but not alot of personality. Thanks all for the good answers