This is the fifth coin in the Royal Canadian Mint’s popular series of coloured maple leaves featuring crystal raindrops. This 2012 $20 pure silver coin is engraved and further enhanced with a colourful leaf design and a Swarovski Element crystal drop. Mintage is 10,000 coins. HST/GST exempt.

The Design:

A large-leafed, long-lived tree that often tops 35 metres (114 feet), the sugar maple can live for 200 years. The shape of its five-lobed leaf is recognizable around the world; a stylized version of its leaf is found at the centre of the Canadian flag. But the leaves and sap are not the only prized features of the Sugar Maple. Sugar Maple wood is exceptionally hard, making it a material of choice for furniture-makers and producers of hardwood flooring, as well as makers of other notable products, including bowling pins and alley floors, basketball courts, baseball bats, violins, guitars, and drums. 

The Sugar Maple:

The pride and joy of maple syrup producers in Ontario and Quebec (but present as far east as Nova Scotia and as far south as Georgia), Acer saccharum—the Sugar Maple—is recognized around the world as the source of the sweetest, clearest maple syrup. It takes a great deal of work to produce this tree’s sweet golden bounty: one litre (one quart) of syrup requires boiling down 40 litres (10 gallons) of sap.