The Royal Canadian Mint will issue circulating commemorative coins for two themes in 2019, including one coin with color.

Plans for the $1 and $2 coins were confirmed in government documents.

The RCM will issue a pair of $2 coins to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day (June 6, 1944) during World War II. One of these coins will be plain and one will feature color.

The second theme for commemoration is the 50th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality, which will be remembered with a $1 coin.

All three of the coins will feature the Susanna Blunt effigy of Queen Elizabeth II on the obverse.

Inside Coin World: Readers report doubled die, repunched Mint mark finds: We preview content exclusive to the Jan. 21 print and digital editions of Coin World, including reader discoveries (like a Proof 1963 Roosevelt dime with a doubled die reverse) in the monthly column “Varieties Notebook.”

The D-Day coins will depict four Canadian soldiers and one Canadian sailor, in a landing craft preparing to land on the French beach code-named Juno Beach. 

They are supported by a Royal Canadian Navy destroyer and two Royal Canadian Air Force barrage balloons and Spitfire

On the inner ring, above the Canadians in the landing craft are the words D-DAY and LE JOUR J. A banner on the lower part of the coin’s outer ring features the words: REMEMBER and SOUVENIR.

On the colorful version, the helmet of the middle soldier will be olive green. Text may also appear in color. 

$1 coin for equality

The dollar is being issued to celebrate “Canada’s diversity through the lens of gender and sexual identity on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the passage of a series of amendments to the Criminal Code of Canada which led to the decriminalization of homosexuality,” according to the government order authorizing the coin. 

The reverse will depict a stylized rendering of two overlapping human faces within a large circle, the left half of the left face in front view and the right face in profile facing left, the two faces forming one whole face in front view composed of two eyes with eyebrows, a nose, a mouth and two ears with a small hoop earring on the left ear. Seven wavy lines and six semi-circular lines emanate from the left and right side of the whole face, with, respectively, the inscriptions, inset between two semi-circular lines, EQUALITY to the lower left of the whole face and ÉGALITÉ covering the bottom right and neck of that face, above the left eye of the whole face. 

The design was created in collaboration with the Treasury Board Secretariat and the Privy Council Office’s LGBTQ2 Secretariat.

Typically, because Canada’s circulating commemorative coins are available at face value and circulate widely, public demand is high, with many coins being collected and taken out of circulation. Coins will be distributed through financial institutions with a portion reserved for coin exchanges.

Though these plans are confirmed through government announcements, the RCM does not release coin design images or discuss release dates until the coins are actually released. 

Coin World will report on the new circulating commemorative coins as further details become available. 

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