Canada drops new glow-in-the-dark coin that's totally dino-mite
Dinosaur lovers, your next collector’s item is about to glow up.
The Royal Canadian Mint has recently released a new coin featuring a Tyrannosaurus rex and a giant flying reptile, with a hidden design that only appears under black light.
On one side, the coin illustrates a giant T. rex moving through a swampy woodland, while a Quetzalcoatlus northropi (the scientific name for the “flying reptile”) swoops overhead.
Royal Canadian Mint
The Mint says the hidden design is “a nod to the remarkable discoveries preserved in Canada’s fossil-rich landscapes.”
The artwork was created by Canadian paleoartist Julius Csotonyi and scientifically reviewed by Dr. François Therrien, paleontologist and curator of Dinosaur Palaeoecology at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Alberta.
Royal Canadian Mint
“Even though these animals coexisted in the same environments, no fossil evidence indicating that they fought each other has been found so far,” states Dr. Therrien. He added that both animals would have witnessed the meteorite impact 66 million years ago that marked the end of the Age of Dinosaurs.
And the flying creature on the coin was no small bird.
The Quetzalcoatlus depicted on the coin is merely “juvenile,” but a fully grown adult could have stood about as tall as a giraffe, with a wingspan reaching up to 11 metres (36 feet), which is roughly the size of a small airplane. Talk about Jurassic Park vibes.
The one-ounce fine silver coin has a limited mintage of just 8,500 and is expected to start shipping September 7.
Each coin comes with a blacklight flashlight, so you can shine it on the reverse and a hidden layer appears, revealing the fossilized forms of the prehistoric animals.
Glow-in-the-dark coins have also been having a bit of a moment at the Mint.
Earlier this year, the Mint released a glow-in-the-dark $2 coin celebrating the CN Tower’s 50th anniversary. It released another coin celebrating the Artemis II mission and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen’s historic journey around the Moon.
At $239.95, the glow-in-the-dark T. rex coin is definitely not pocket change, but it’s far from the most expensive coin the Mint has made.
A ruby coin to honour the late Queen Elizabeth’s 100th birthday was priced at $369.95 in June. But that’s peanuts compared to the $2,299.95 glitzy 24K gold necklace coin that dropped earlier in January.