Yvon Gariepy

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Yvon Gariepy (born July 13, 1926 in Montreal, Quebec) was the President of the Royal Canadian Mint from 1975 to 1981. [1] In later years, he worked for Canada Post. Mr. Gariepy was a professional member of the Order of Engineers of Quebec, Professional Corporation of Urbanists of Quebec, Canadian Institute of Planners and the Institute of the Public Administration of Canada. [1]

Montreal City in Quebec, Canada

Montreal is the most populous municipality in the Canadian province of Quebec and the second-most populous municipality in Canada. Originally called Ville-Marie, or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-peaked hill in the heart of the city. The city is centred on the Island of Montreal, which took its name from the same source as the city, and a few much smaller peripheral islands, the largest of which is Île Bizard. It has a distinct four-season continental climate with warm to hot summers and cold, snowy winters.

Quebec Province of Canada

Quebec is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is bordered to the west by the province of Ontario and the bodies of water James Bay and Hudson Bay; to the north by Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay; to the east by the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the province of Newfoundland and Labrador; and to the south by the province of New Brunswick and the U.S. states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York. It also shares maritime borders with Nunavut, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. Quebec is Canada's largest province by area and its second-largest administrative division; only the territory of Nunavut is larger. It is historically and politically considered to be part of Central Canada.

Royal Canadian Mint

The Royal Canadian Mint is a Crown corporation, operating under the Royal Canadian Mint Act. The shares of the Mint are held in trust for the Crown in right of Canada.

On June 6, 1975, Gariépy was appointed to the position. [2] He officially took over the position from Gordon Hunter the next week and reported to the Finance Minister, John Turner. Turner became Prime Minister of Canada in 1984. At the 1975 Royal Canadian Numismatic Association Annual Convention, he announced the launching of two Olympic gold coins. Gariepy was a coin collector himself. [3]

John Turner 17th Prime Minister of Canada

John Napier Wyndham Turner is a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 17th prime minister of Canada, in office from June 30 to September 17, 1984.

Prime Minister of Canada head of government for Canada

The Prime Minister of Canada is the primary minister of the Crown, chairman of the Cabinet, and Canada's head of government. The current, and 23rd, Prime Minister of Canada is the Liberal Party's Justin Trudeau, following the 2015 Canadian federal election. Canadian prime ministers are styled as The Right Honourable, a privilege maintained for life.

The Royal Canadian Numismatic Association was founded in 1950. It is a nonprofit association for coin collectors and other people interested in Canadian numismatics. It has members throughout Canada and in other countries. At times, it also works with the Canadian Association for Numismatic Education (CAFNE), an arms length organization, which is defined by the CRA as a Canadian educational and charitable organization. CAFNE provides funding for some of the RCNA's educational seminars and publications.

In 1976, Gariepy’s role as Master of the Mint started to take shape. He officially opened a new RCM facility capable of producing 700 million coins per year per worker shift in Winnipeg in April. The 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal resulted in a coin program that generated approximately $200 million in gross sales and $50 million in net profit, and the mint produced 8.4 million troy ounces of silver coins, the highest silver consumption for coins in the world.

1976 Summer Olympics Games of the XXI Olympiad, held in Montréal in 1976

The 1976 Summer Olympics, officially called the Games of the XXI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event in Montreal, Quebec, in 1976, and the first Olympic Games held in Canada.

Gariepy announced that an annual award would be bestowed to the Canadian deemed to have contributed the most to numismatic education in Canada. [4] The award, known as the Royal Canadian Mint Award, was in the form of a sterling silver medal. [4] A panel of numismatists, along with the Royal Canadian Mint, selected the winner, and it was presented at the Annual Royal Canadian Numismatic Association Convention. [4]

The Gold Maple Leaf can be partly attributed to Gariepy. The RCM needed to create a product that would differentiate itself from other mints. The South African Krugerrand, the only other gold bullion coin product at the time, was 22 Karat Gold or .9167 pure. [5] Gariepy wanted to produce a purer product, based on the knowledge that the RCM’s refinery was considered the best in the world for quality. In 1979, the RCM struck a .999 pure gold coin featuring the Canadian symbol: a maple leaf. [5] The reverse was designed by the RCM's Master Engraver, Walter Ott, while the obverse featured the effigy of Queen Elizabeth II designed by Arnold Machin. [5]

Krugerrand

The Krugerrand is a South African coin, first minted on 3rd July, 1967 to help market South African gold and produced by the South African Mint. By 1980, the Krugerrand accounted for 90% of the global gold coin market. The name is a compound of Paul Kruger, the former South African president depicted on the obverse, and rand, the South African unit of currency. During the 1970s and 1980s, some western countries forbade import of the Krugerrand because of its association with the apartheid government of South Africa, most notably the United States, which was the coin's largest market in 1985.

Another change that was brought about under Gariepy’s leadership was the change of the Prestige Set, a Double Dollar Set that featured a nickel dollar and a silver dollar, to a proof set. The coins were of a specimen finish (brilliant relief on a brilliant background). Under Gariepy, the Prestige Set would be changed to a Proof status. [6] The new Proof Set was introduced in March 1981 with an issue price of $36.00 and all the coins had a frosted relief against a mirror background. [6]

On November 30, 1981, Gariepy resigned as Master of the Mint to take a position as President with Canada Post.

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Canadian coinage is the coinage of Canada, produced by the Royal Canadian Mint and denominated in Canadian dollars ($) and the subunit of dollars, cents (¢). An effigy of the reigning monarch always appears on the obverse of all coins. There are standard images which appear on the reverse, but there are also commemorative and numismatic issues with different images on the reverse.

One of the most profitable aspects of the Royal Canadian Mint (RCM) is its numismatic product line. The first numismatic coin from the RCM was arguably the 1935 dollar commemorating the Silver Jubilee of His Majesty King George V. Though intended for circulation, it was the first Canadian coin commemorating an event. The decision to issue this coin was made in October 1934 by then-Prime Minister R.B. Bennett. There were economic and patriotic motivations for the release of a silver dollar, including a hope to boost the silver mining industry. In future years, the silver dollar would have a more emotional meaning for many Canadians because it was also the first coin to have the Voyageur motif on its reverse.

Since the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, the Royal Canadian Mint has struck Summer and Winter Olympic coins to mark Games held in Canada.

By 1954, a new trend was beginning to emerge for the Royal Canadian Numismatic Association as annual meetings evolved into annual conventions. Working with the Toronto Coin Club as host, the first such convention was held in Toronto in 1954. The conventions offered an agenda of educational forums, bourse activity, competitive exhibits with awards to the winners, and a closing banquet, with the highlight being a special guest speaker.. It was also in 1954 that the association issued its first ever medal to commemorate the event. The tradition of an annual convention and a convention medal continues to this very day.

The Canadian silver dollar was first issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 1935 to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of King George V. The coin's reverse design was sculpted by Emanuel Hahn and portrays a voyageur and a person of Indigenous descent paddling a birch-bark canoe. The faint lines in the background represent the Northern Lights. The voyageur design was used on the dollar until 1986. It was then replaced with the 1987 Canadian 1-dollar coin. 1967 marked the end of the silver dollar as a business strike, or a coin issued for circulation. After 1967, the dollar coin was made of nickel, except for non-circulating commemorative issues for the collector market, which continue to contain silver.

Although the first Olympic coin can be traced back to 480 BC, the modern Olympics did not see its first commemoratives until 1951. The original concept of Olympic coins was that the Greeks believed that coins brought the general public closer to the Olympic games. The premise was that those who could not attend the games could at least have a tangible souvenir of the event.

The Canadian Platinum Maple Leaf is the official bullion platinum coin of Canada. First issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 1988, it was available until 2002 in five different denominations, all of which are marked as containing .9995 pure platinum. The bullion coin was partly reintroduced in 2009 in the form of the 1 troy ounce denomination, featuring a new portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on the obverse. The coins have legal tender status in Canada, but as is often the case with bullion coins, the face values of these coins is lower than the market price of the material they are made from.

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The Royal Canadian Mint has made coins with various themes. Most recently, ice hockey has been used for many numismatic releases. The first known ice hockey coin was for the 1988 Winter Olympics. Issued on February 25, 1986, the coin featured a goalie on the coin. Edge lettering was also used for the coin, the first time that it was used on silver coins.

Starting in 1997, the Royal Canadian Mint started to sell hockey medallions to the public. To commemorate the induction of Mario Lemieux in the Hockey Hall of Fame, a set was issued honouring all three inductees. One set was issued in Sterling Silver while another was issued in Nickel. The success of the release led to future issues.

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References

  1. 1 2 The CN Journal, Volume 53, No. 3, p.138, Official Publication of Royal Canadian Numismatic Association
  2. ↑ Affichage complet de la description (version imprimable) - Recherche de documents d’archives - Bibliothèque et Archives Canada Archived September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine .
  3. ↑ Royal Canadian Mint: 100 Years of History, p.153, Published by Les Éditions Stromboli, 2008, St. Lambert, Québec, Canada, Project Co-Oridnator: Francesco Bellomo, Project Manager for Royal Canadian Mint: Susan Aubry, Legal Deposit: Library and Archives Canada, ISBN   2-921800-26-8
  4. 1 2 3 The Charlton Standard Catalogue of the Canadian Numismatic Association’s Medals and Awards, 1st Edition, R. Brian Cornwell, p. 68, 1991, The Charlton Press, Toronto, ISBN   0-88968-100-7
  5. 1 2 3 Royal Canadian Mint Unveils 25th Anniversary Gold Maple Leaf Design at A.N.A. World's Fair of Money
  6. 1 2 The Charlton Standard Catalogue of Canadian Coins, 60th Anniversary Edition, W.K. Cross, p. 420, The Charlton Press, ISBN   0-88968-297-6
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