Item: i73901


Authentic Coin of:

Canada under Elizabeth II – Queen: 6 February 1952–present
2010 Winter Olympics, Vancouver – Commemorative issue
Curling Competition
2007 Silver 25 Dollars 40mm (27.78 grams) 0.925 Silver (0.8208 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 725  |  Certification: NGC  PF 70 ULTRA CAMEO  3250110-11
25 DOLLARS SH, Athlete in curling competition; holographic olympic logo in field to left.
CANADA 2007 ELIZABETH II, Bust of Queen Elizabeth II right.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.

Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice towards a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones, also called rocks, across the ice curling sheet towards the house, a circular target marked on the ice. Each team has eight stones, with each player throwing two. The purpose is to accumulate the highest score for a game; points are scored for the stones resting closest to the centre of the house at the conclusion of each end, which is completed when both teams have thrown all of their stones. A game usually consists of eight or ten ends.

The curler can induce a curved path by causing the stone to slowly turn as it slides, and the path of the rock may be further influenced by two sweepers with brooms who accompany it as it slides down the sheet, using the brooms to alter the state of the ice in front of the stone. Sweeping a rock makes it curl less, and decreases the friction that slows the rock down. A great deal of strategy and teamwork go into choosing the ideal path and placement of a stone for each situation, and the skills of the curlers determine the degree to which the stone will achieve the desired result. This gives curling its nickname of “chess on ice”.

The 2010 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXI Olympic Winter Games (French: Les XXI^es Jeux olympiques d’hiver) and commonly known as Vancouver 2010, informally the 21st Winter Olympics, was an international winter multi-sport event that was held from 12 to 28 February 2010 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with some events held in the surrounding suburbs of Richmond, West Vancouver and the University Endowment Lands, and in the nearby resort town of Whistler.

Approximately 2,600 athletes from 82 nations participated in 86 events in fifteen disciplines. Both the Olympic and Paralympic Games were organized by the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC), headed by John Furlong. The 2010 Winter Olympics were the third Olympics hosted by Canada and the first by the province of British Columbia. Canada hosted the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec, and the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta. Metro Vancouver is the largest metropolitan area to host the Winter Olympics, although Calgary is the largest city to host the Winter Olympics. They will both be surpassed by Beijing in 2022.

Following Olympic tradition, the incumbent mayor of Vancouver Sam Sullivan received the Olympic flag during the closing ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. The flag was raised on February 28, 2006, in a special ceremony and was on display at Vancouver City Hall until the Olympic opening ceremony. The event was officially opened by Governor General Michaëlle Jean, who was accompanied by the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge.

For the first time, Canada won gold in an official sport at an Olympic Games hosted at home, having failed to do so at both the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal and the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary (although Canada won the woman’s curling event in Calgary when it was still only a demonstration sport). Canada clinched their first gold medal on the second day of the competition and first topped the gold medal tally on the second to last day of competition and went on to become the first host nation since Norway in 1952 to lead the gold medal count. With 14, Canada broke the record for the most gold medals won at a single Winter Olympics, which was 13, set by the Soviet Union in 1976 and Norway in 2002.^[6] The United States won the most medals in total, their second time doing so at the Winter Olympics, and broke the record for the most medals won at a single Winter Olympics with 37, a record held up to then by Germany in 2002 with 36 medals.^[5] Athletes from Slovakia and Belarus won the first Winter Olympic gold medals for their nations.

Canada is a country, consisting of ten provinces and three territories, in the northern part of the continent of North America. It extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres (3.85 million square miles) in total, making it the world’s second-largest country by total area and the fourth-largest country by land area. Canada’s common border with the United States forms the world’s longest land border. Canada is sparsely populated overall, the majority of its land territory being dominated by forest and tundra as well as the mountain range of the Rocky Mountains; about four-fifths of the population live near to the southern border. The majority of Canada has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer.

The land now called Canada has been inhabited for millennia by various Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French colonies were established on the region’s Atlantic coast. As a consequence of various conflicts, the United Kingdom gained and lost North American territories until left, in the late 18th century, with what mostly comprises Canada today. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1, 1867, three colonies joined to form the autonomous federal Dominion of Canada. This began an accretion of provinces and territories to the new self-governing Dominion. In 1931, Britain granted Canada near total independence with the Statute of Westminster 1931 and full sovereignty was attained when the Canada Act 1982 severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British parliament.

Canada is a federal parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, Queen Elizabeth II being the current head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level. It is one of the world’s most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries, with a population of approximately 35 million as of 2015. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade networks. Canada’s long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture.

Canada is a developed country and one of the wealthiest in the world, with the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally, and the eighth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, and education. Canada is a Commonwealth Realm member of the Commonwealth of Nations, a member of the Francophonie, and part of several major international and intergovernmental institutions or groupings including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the G8, the Group of Ten, the G20, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.