Five-dollar coin (Canada)
discontinued Canadian coin (1912–1914)
The five-dollar gold piece was a gold Canadian coin that was struck for circulation from 1912 to 1914, consisting of 90% gold and 10% copper.
History
The Currency Act of 1910 provided for gold coins to be issued in denominations of $2.50, $5, $10 and $20. However, the Ottawa Branch of the Royal Mint only issued $5 and $10 pieces, with gold patterns first struck in 1911. The $5 piece is the same size as the US $5 half eagle minted between 1840 and 1929, and contains the same amount of gold. The Currency Act of 1910 also made US half-eagles, eagles, and double eagles coined after January 18, 1837, legal tender in Canada.
According to the Royal Canadian Mint, much of the gold for the coins came from the Klondike region in 1912, and from Ontario in the other years. Production was halted in 1914, following the outbreak of the First World War.
In 1926, banknotes issued by the Canadian Government became redeemable in gold once again. As a result, patterns were produced in bronze for $5 and $10 pieces, in anticipation that the denominations would again be produced for circulation. The shield from the Canadian coat of arms was updated to reflect the new arms.
“Five-dollar coin (Canada)” enters the record as discontinued Canadian coin (1912–1914). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Five-dollar, coin and Canada can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q116006839. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1912, 1914, 1910 and 1911.
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This entry incorporates text from “Five-dollar coin (Canada)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.