The Canadian Maple Leaf is a bullion coin made by the Royal Canadian Mint. These bullion coins are designed specifically for investors. They are available in gold, silver, platinum and palladium. There was even a special 25th anniversary coin made out of both gold and silver that was released in 2004. Under the Canadian Currency Act, these coins can be accepted as legal tender at their face value. However, no sensible investor will use these coins to pay for groceries or to go see a movie. The actual values of these coins are much more than the face value. If an ounce of gold is selling for $1,500 and the one ounce coin has a face value of $50, there is a big difference.

What makes the Canadian Maple Leaf bullion coins interesting is the purity level of the coins. The gold bullion coin is 99.99% pure gold. The silver bullion coin is 99.99% pure silver. The platinum maple leaf is 99.95% pure platinum. The palladium maple leaf is 99.95% pure palladium. The purity percentage is how much of the precious metal the Maple Leaf coin contains . All of the different Maple Leaf bullion coins have the highest purity levels in the world. They are even more pure than the coins made by the U.S. Mint. The remaining metals used in the bullion coins are typically copper, silver or some other metal.

The Canadian Maple Leaf gold bullion coin was the second such coin available in the world. It was first made in 1979, as a result of a boycott against South Africa. South Africa was the only country that had a gold bullion coin available, prior to 1979.

In 2007 the Royal Mint created a 220 pound, $1 million face value gold coin, that measures 20 inches in diameter and is over 1 inch thick. It was part of a promotion to raise awareness about the Royal Canadian Mint and bullion coins. The mint was surprised when it received requests to make even more of this series. There were a total of five more of these 220 pound Canadian Maple Leaf gold coins. The mint originally sold these massive gold coins for about $2.5 million each. In June 2010, according to USA Today, one of these coins sold for $4 million at auction in Austria. The high price was influenced by the high price of gold. While most people aren’t in the market for such a sizeable purchase, gold coins do come in more accessible sizes.