2005-2006 National Park Series

@zhuyuecai: Great images! Thanks for posting! My preference is the silver colour version as it is true to the coin.

Will you be collecting the full set of 2005-06 National Parks coins?


If you're interested, I posted about this coin a few years back - you can read it here:

- 2005 $20 Pacific Rim National Park Coin

Great images.
One of my fafourite cons. So much detailed for 1oz. Great work for mint.
I remember it was under appreciated series.

Nahanni park:

Located along the South Nahanni River, one of the most spectacular wild rivers in North America, this park contains deep canyons and huge waterfalls, as well as a unique limestone cave system. The park is also home to animals of the boreal forest, such as wolves, grizzly bears and caribou.

The coin captures the specialty of the park really well, the south nahani river, the bear, the Virginia falls, and the wood blocks along the river bank.




The obverse is Virgina Boulay's work. The texture of the water, the rocks and especially the bear's fur, you can even imagine the feeling of touching the bear by just looking at its image on the coin. This is actually my most favourite coin in the series.








The actual mintage is unknown, combine with other two coins in the same series, the total mintage is 20218, so roughly 6000 more or less I would say.

place holder for the boat

Georgian Bay Islands National Park

Georgian bay park is the world's largest archipelago (island chain), consists of 63 small islands or parts of islands in Georgian Bay, near Port Severn, Ontario.
Visitors can take 'water taxi' to the park and travel between islands. It is the perfect place for boaters.




The design of the coin actually reflect this, island, water and boat. For me it's less focus on the detail than the other coins in the same series. However, since this park inspired the Seven of Groups artists, another series from RCM. So it's still kind of interesting.

Jasper:

Ok, finally find the time to finish the series. I put this coin as the final one because I actually learn a lesson from its purchase.

First of all, this park is really different from the others in the series, in that, it has more elements about human and the nature. What I mean is its two famous activities: horseback riding tour and the Skywalk. It would be fantastic if you can ride the horse on the Skywalk. However, this really needs some skill and special admission.

However, the Skywalk was completed and opened at 2014, so it is not picked up in the coin.




here is the image of the coin:




The coin features the horse back riding and the rock face of Mount Edith Cavell, one of the important landmarks of Jasper. The reverse is designed by the Canadian artist Michelle Grant, if you are interested in her works, here is her website http://www.michellegrant.ca/galleries).

She also designed some other coins for RCM, like the 10 oz our national colors this year. She did quite a lot of wildlife art, so I am thinking of getting one of her works, the 2015 Canadian horse. But yeah, it would be next year's plan due to the budget. The actual mintage is unknown, but based on the coin book from RCM it has the higher current value among the series, so I suspect that the mintage is the lowest, might be somewhere about 5000.


As mentioned, I learned a lesson when puchasing this coin from ebay. One easy spotted flaw is the scratches on the capsule. This is a sign of the fact that the coin was not properly stored . There is quite some black toning on the edge of the coin which is not easy to see in the image. When I bought this coin, I was in a mood to collect the whole series ASAP, so I just pick the available one with the lowest price. But actually, the seller was not offering the actual image of the coin but the one he downloads from other website I guess. So the lesson is, when you buy coins that are older than 10 years, better to pick the one with the actual image posted and carefully inspect the quality of the coin.
And more importantly, coin collecting require patience. Just wait for the market, eventually you will find good deals. There is one was recently sold for about $45 (shipment included) in a auction. I should be more patient:(

Thanks @comments. Yeah, it's exciting to have my first complete series.
And it will be my all time favourite for sure.