The Coin Too Big To Be True – Or Safe

You see it in cartoons and joke shops, you hear kids talking about it, a million-dollar bill, and all the while you know that such a thing could never really exist. And well, it doesn’t, but there is a series of million-dollar coins. What’s more, each one is worth many times more than their face value. There were only six minted, and they’re now worth over $5 million CAD, and, in a mysterious twist to the story of outrageous currency,  one of the million-dollar coins was stolen without a trace. 

In 2007 the Royal Canadian Mint released a rather ridiculous piece of coinage. Known as the Big Maple Leafs, these $1 million coins were minted as part of a sort of minting arms race by different national treasuries. Just a few years prior, for example, the Austrian Mint had released 15 massive gold coins with a face value of 100,000 euros each. 

Behind the scenes, most national mints and gold refineries tend to compete with one another to produce the best and purest gold bullion. Whether it was an act of one-up-manship or an advertisement for their incredibly pure gold, The Royal Canadian Mint ended up minting six of these 220-pound disks of 99.999% pure gold, known in the business as “five nines pure.” They started off producing just one, but after buyers and bidders starting coming forward, they minted five more, eventually selling five and keeping one in their vaults. One was purchased by the Barrick Gold Corporation and loaned to the Royal Ontario Museum where it remains on display to this day. Another of these coins wasn’t so lucky. 

The coin was purchased and put on display in The Bode Museum in Berlin. The museum itself is also known as the “Island Museum” due to its position in the middle of a river in Berlin. But that didn’t stop two brothers and their cousin from turning thief and absconding with the Big Maple Leaf coin without ever triggering a single alarm. They were able to pull this off thanks to a tip from a security guard working inside about a faulty window. It didn’t take long for the suspects to be apprehended, but there’s just one problem, the coin has never been found. 

How does something so large and conspicuous just disappear? Some think the trio was able to melt it down, other’s think they coin is intact and stashed away or buried somewhere (imagine stumbling on a coin worth millions of dollars). No one knows where the coin ended up, and we might never know. But perhaps the lesson here is something we already knew: it’s not the best idea to print a single piece of currency worth so much. After all, if you lose something like that (and we did) it’s not as if you can expect it to show up between your couch cushions.