Silver Superman coins prove to be Kryptonite to Royal Canadian Mint’s bottom line

Jon Corporate

In 2011, the mint began selling a series of silver collectible coins, with a face value of $20, at a time when the price of silver was soaring. The cost to buy one was also just $20, tax free.
Superman, Bugs Bunny, the starship Enterprise and other catchy images on the coins attracted hundreds of thousands of coin collectors and investors, and fattened revenues at the Crown corporation. More than 4.2 million such coins have been struck to date.
But the price of silver has fallen dramatically in the five years since, and Canadians are returning the coins by the truckload, protected from the fall in silver prices by that fixed $20 face value which the mint must pay back on request.
Stung by the massive returns, the mint abruptly ended its so-called Face Value collectible coin business earlier this year, and has taken a big hit on its balance sheet.
The 2016 annual report, delayed for months because of revised accounting for the Face Value reversal, says there’s no plan to place an expiry date on redemptions of the coins.

This post was published at CBC News