50 Cents - Elizabeth II Miga, Aerials Freestyle Skiing, 6/12

One of twelve coins in the Royal Canadian Mint's Vancouver 2010 Olympic coloured circulation series, this piece celebrates Miga — one of two official mascots developed for the Games, a hybrid creature drawn from Stó:lō First Nations and Pacific Northwest Coast mythology. The mascot program was unusually ambitious for an Olympic host; rather than a single figure, Vancouver's organizing committee commissioned a trio, with a fourth added specifically for the Paralympic Games. Circulation strikes with applied colour from this period are frequently encountered with edge wear to the colour layer rather than the metal itself.