Israeli Mystery at the R.C.M.

 

For a researcher into modern Canadian coins, the Reports of the Royal Canadian Mint reached crescendo in the late 1960s and early 1970s. No sooner had the Mint become a Crown Corporation than they went into secrecy mode and the background information in the Reports became virtually nil. It's frustrating to note such statements as "The Mint struck more foreign coins last year than ever before" and to be provided with no information on those mintages, even the names of the countries involved. So effective has been this secrecy that the world is also unaware of the various foreign mintages having been struck in Canada as witness the Krause catalogues. Unfortunately, after some 35 years of non-information, it is now probably impossible to ever compile such a work as "Foreign Coins Struck at the Royal Canadian Mint". A lot of government records tend to be "deep-sixed" after seven years.

Therefore, it is interesting when we come across a photo that may give a clue as to one of these many "secret" mintages. One such appears in the book "Striking Impressions" and is captioned "Meeting with representative to discuss coinage designs."

 

 

In this case, the coinage designs being discussed were Israeli and the particular issue is tagged by the drawings which illustrate theobverse and reverse of the aluminum 1- "new agora" of "5740" (A.D. 1980). Of this particular denomination and year, 200,000,000 1-agorah were struck although 110,000,000 were reportedly melted down. This was the first year (as of 24 February 1980 ) when the "New agora" was introduced to replace the old at the rate of 1 "new" to 10 old Agorot. As an indication of this, the reverse of the new agora is that of the old 10-agorot piece as was the general shape, in contrast to its having been scalloped before. The new 10-agorot had the reverse design of the old 1-lira.; the old lira was now called a "shequel".

 

1980 was a complicated year for Israeli coinage. It saw the last of the old aluminum scalloped-edge 1-agora (2.6-million struck), smooth-edge aluminum 10-agorot (4,752,000 struck) , copper-nickel round 1-lirah pieces (10,840,000 of which the majority were melted before issue) as well as silver 200-lirot and gold 5000-lirot pieces commemorating the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty. It also saw the introduction of the new 10-to-1 Reform coinage: aluminum 1 "New Agora" (200-million with about 110-million later melted down); aluminum 5 "New Agorot" (69,532,000 struck); bronze 10 "New Agorot" (167,932,000 struck of which about 70,200,000 were later melted); copper-nickel " ½ -shequels" (52,308,000 struck). There were also a number of different silver ½ - and 1-shequel commemoratives, all with very limited issues.

 

But in between was a whole set of 1980 old "agorot" coins which were generally the same as the regular circulation coins but, as indicated by a small inscription on the reverses, actually commemorated the 25th Anniversary of the Bank of Israel. The total issue was only 35,000 sets but are still quite inexpensive. This set is shown below to illustrate the general design of the coins issued under the pre-Reform system.

 

1 Agorot, 1980. Bank of Israel . Alum. 5 Agorot, 1980. Bank of Israel . Nickel

 

10 Agorot, 1980. Bank of Israel . Nickel 25 Agorot, 1980. Bank of Israel . Nickel

 

½ -lira, 1980. Bank of Israel . Nickel 1-lira, 1980. Bank of Israel . Nickel

5-lira, 1980. Bank of Israel . Nickel

 

The photo strongly indicates that 1 New Agorah at least was struck at the Royal Canadian Mint. Did they strike any of the rest of them? It seems likely - but we may never know.

Wayne Jacobs is a numismatic expert. Currently secretary and editor of the "Mid-Island Coin Club Numismatic Journal"of Nanaimo, Vancouver Island , British Columbia, he is the award winning author of numerous articles. The MICC journal are hosted here: MICC webpages Copyright 2006 Wayne Jacobs. This article may be reprinted freely for non commercial purpose only if the resource box is left intact, linking back to us.