History
Bobcat
The bobcat is a solitary and cryptic animal. It rarely vocalizes, but will yowl during mating season, especially if two males are competing for the same female.
The bobcat is often confused with the Canada lynx, but its face more closely resembles that of a housecat, and just like other cats, it can hiss, snarl, purr and growl. The bobcat is smaller than the lynx, with shorter ear tufts, spotted fur, and a white underside on its short “bobbed” tail. It also has smaller paws which makes it difficult for the bobcat to move about in the snow, and limits its range to southern Canada. The bobcat’s primary prey includes hares and rabbits, but it will also eat rodents, birds, fish, reptiles, even the occasional deer. It’s an opportunistic hunter that packs quite a punch, and has been observed taking prey much larger than itself.
Established in 1908, the Royal Canadian Mint has in the past couple of decades been one of the market leaders in applying new technologies in the production of gold and silver bullion coins. Not only did it create the first legal tender silver and gold bullion coins that contained a purity of four nines, they went one step further in 1998 with the introduction of a special edition gold bullion coin that contained 1.02233 troy ounces of 99.999% (five nines) pure gold. The mint’s quest in perfecting high purity gold coins did not stop at the one-ounce weight mark. In fact, it reached new heights in 2007 by unveiling a Gold Maple Leaf coin that weighed 100 kilograms, had a gold purity of .99999, and came with a face value of one million Canadian dollars.
In 2014 the Royal Canadian Mint set a new standard in coin security with the introduction of its latest innovation called “Bullion DNA Anti-Counterfeiting Technology” which includes a process where a unique microscopic security mark is minted onto every coin. The centre of the security mark contains the number “14” (for the year 2014) and is only visible under strong magnification. This new technology adds another layer of protection against counterfeiting, and all Gold Maple Leaf coins minted from 2014 onwards will contain this new security feature.