2003 Proof Silver Dollar - 100th Anniversary of Cobalt Silver Strike
What does a fox, a hammer, and a lake have in common? How about the birth of Canada's mining industry! Celebrate the 100th anniversary with this stunning coin!
MATERIAL: 99.99% Silver
WEIGHT: 25.175 grams
FROM THE MINT
"There is a legend that recounts how Cobalt's pivotal silver strike occured when Fred La Rose, a railway blacksmith tossed a hammer at a pesky fox - an account that may be largely exaggeration, but does hold two verifiable facts true; the discovery was accidental and it did occur in 1903."
"At the time, Ontario's railway was inching its way into the northeastern region of the province to open up new agricultural lands. Contractors J.H. McKinley and Ernest Darraugh were hired to supply railway ties. In the summer of 1903, they were surveying the area of Long Lake (later Cobalt Lake) for timber when glittering rocks strewn on the shoreline caught their eyes. Tom Herbert, another railway employee who was also prospecting on nearby Nipissing Hill, found vein after vein exposed at the surface. It was Silver - the richest silver deposit the world had seen thus far"