20 Dollars - British Columbia Gold pattern

British Columbia's 1862 gold patterns were produced in response to the Fraser River and Cariboo gold rushes, which flooded the colony with raw placer gold and created genuine demand for a local coinage. Governor James Douglas pushed for a provincial mint to process the gold on-site rather than shipping it south to San Francisco, where American assay offices were absorbing colonial metal. The patterns were struck in London — almost certainly at the Royal Mint — as proof-of-concept pieces for a proposed coinage that Westminster ultimately refused to authorize.

The colony was absorbed into Confederation nine years later without ever issuing a circulating gold coinage. Fewer than a handful of specimens are known to exist.