Silver News

Royal Canadian Mint Program to Attract Youngsters

In an effort to attract young coin collectors and get them hooked on collecting early in life, the Royal Canadian Mint has produced & The Great Canadian Coin Kit, Young Collectors Edition aimed at children eight years and younger.

The kit includes a magnifying glass, coin collector manual, which explains how to collect coins and care for them, and two coin albums. One album can hold all Canadian circulating coins between 1976 and 1990. The second album has spaces for coins from 1991 to 2000. The kit also includes a coupon which is redeemable for a 1995, 50-cent coin and an official Mint medal.

To promote the C$24.95 kit (about US$20.00), the Mint is using cartoon characters of animals found on coins such as beavers and puffins.

According to Mint officials, research has shown that most current coin collectors tend to be older and their ranks are not being replaced by younger collectors. The kit's goal is to get children interested in coin collecting early and keep them interested as they get older especially at around 13 years old, an age when childhood interest in coins drop.

For information, contact the Mint at 800-267-1871 in Canada or 800-268-6468 in the United States. You can access the Mint's web site and on-line catalog at http://www.rcmint.ca.

Silver News - February/March 1996