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The 1967 Canadian Goose Dollar

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1967 Canada Dollar, PR68DCAM. Click image to enlarge.

The Canadian silver dollar series has long been a top draw for collectors around the world. Minted en masse for circulation from 1935 through 1967, these coins carry an 80% silver composition and are just a couple millimeters smaller in diameter than a typical United States silver dollar, at 36.06 for the Canadian Dollar versus 38.1 millimeters for U.S. silver dollars.

The circulating Canadian Dollars of the mid-20th century feature an array of handsome designs, with the obverses of that period fielding four different likenesses of the three successive British monarchs of the day. These include King George V, King George VI, and Queen Elizabeth II, the latter of whom received two different obverse treatments on the circulating dollars – one depicting her shortly after her 1953 coronation at the age of 26 and the other showing her in 1965 around the age of 39.

This second design of Queen Elizabeth II, by Arnold Machin, anchors the obverse of the 1967 Canadian Dollar. The coin honors the 100th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, which saw the unification of Canada’s provinces into a single nation known as the Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867. The Canadian Confederation Centennial was, akin to the United States Bicentennial of 1976, a monumental event warranting special commemorative designs on the reverse of all circulating Canadian coinage, including the silver dollar.

The Canadian Dollar ordinarily carried a reverse design depicting a Canadian voyageur in a canoe with a Native American navigating crisp waters under the glowing Northern Lights. The quintessentially Canadian design, debuting with the circulating silver dollar in 1935, had only been superseded a few times over the run of the silver series by other commemorative designs. It relinquished its spot on the reverse once more in 1967 on what became the final circulating Canadian silver dollar; this time it was replaced with a design by Alex Colville of a flying goose – one of several animals featured on the native wildlife-themed reverses of the Confederation Centennial Commemorative coins.

The Royal Canadian Mint struck a total of 6,909,237 but 141,741 were later melted, leaving a net mintage of 6,767,496. Meanwhile, 961,887 Prooflikes were sold in pilofilm flat pack sets, 70,583 more were included in a special Proof Set packaged in a red box with a special silver medal, and an additional 337,688 were sold in a black-boxed Proof Set incorporating a $20 gold commemorative coin. Furthermore, numismatists have discovered several interesting varieties, some of which are quite rare.

Among the most well-known of these varieties is the 1967 Diving Goose, an error that shows the reverse design of the goose approximately 45 degrees off its horizontal orientation; when the coin is flipped from obverse to reverse, the goose appears to be diving to the left. This is the most dramatic of the die rotation errors, with other 1967 Canada Dollars showing the goose off orientation by 10 to 20 degrees. It is believed that many of these anomalies were intentional goofs created by Royal Canadian Mint employees, though these pieces are nevertheless scarce and coveted, with a 1967 Prooflike Diving Goose Dollar typically selling for around $500.

Another variety known for the 1967 Canadian Dollar involves the size of the ornamental beads on the coin, all of which carry a Large Beads obverse but struck with two different reverse formats. The more common of these is the Small Beads reverse featuring a concave field, while the Large Beads with flat field reverse is quite rare; the coin was originally planned with the Large Beads and flat reverse format, but this configuration was physically demanding on the dies and thus the reverse was modified with the Small Beads with concave field. The differences between the two reverse designs can be deciphered by the relative location of the “A” in “DOLLAR” to the nearest beads. On the Large Beads reverse, the apex of the “A” is positioned directly at one bead while on the Small Beads variety the tip of the “A” points between two beads.

Other garden-variety errors are also known for the 1967 Canada Dollars, including multiple-struck errors, off-center errors, and others. Among the most valuable of these errors is a 1967 Canada Dollar graded PCGS PL64 and exhibiting coin alignment (obverse up, reverse down) versus the ordinary medal alignment (obverse up, reverse up) par for the course on Canadian coinage; this specimen crossed the block at a 2019 Heritage Auctions event for $9,000 and is one of the most valuable 1967 Canadian Dollars to have ever traded hands.

Sources
  • 1 Dollar 1967. CoinsAndCanada.com. Accessed November 16, 2020.
  • Cuhaj, George S. & Thomas Michael. Standard Catalog World Coins, 1901-2000. Krause Publications, 2019.
  • Haxby, James A. A Guide Book of Canadian Coins and Tokens. Whitman Publishing, 2012.

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