Coin Videos

Rick Mercer has trained with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, has gone sky diving with the Canadian Forces and has hit the pool with Olympic silver medalist Alexandre Despatie.

In this video, Mercer tours the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa, providing viewers not only insightful information about the Mint, but a presentation that is naturally humorous. His walk-through of the gold vault and through the refinery process was especially funny.

Jokes aside, the video is very interesting in its own right just to see the facilities.

"How much gold is here?" Mercer asks the Director of the Refinery when they enter the vault.

"In round numbers, there's 600,000 ounces here this morning, which, also in round numbers, is $600 million dollars." the Director replies.

Not letting too much time go by without a laugh, Mercer even puts approximately $500 worth of gold cathode in his mouth before security "urges" him to release it!

In the end, the only thing Mercer admits to being able to steal from the Mint was a stapler.

The Royal Canadian Mint officially started operations on January 2, 1908 to produce the nation's first domestically produced coin. It has been in operation since breaking many barriers along the way. It was the first facility to produce 99999 fine gold and entered the Guinness Book of World Records with the largest coin in the world - a 100 kg, 99.999% pure $1 million gold bullion coin.

The Royal Canadian Mint is recognized as one of the largest and most versatile mints in the world, offering a wide range of specialized, high quality coinage products and related services on an international scale.

Resources

• Royal Canadian Mint
• Canadian Silver Coin Values