The removal of IND:IMP: (Indiae Imperator — Emperor of India) from George VI's royal titles followed Indian independence in August 1947, but the Royal Canadian Mint had already struck its entire 1948 die inventory with the old legend. The result was a catastrophic shortage: only 37,784 fifty-cent pieces were struck for 1948, making it by far the key date of the series and one of the genuinely scarce circulation issues in twentieth-century Canadian coinage.
Production recovered sharply in subsequent years, but the 1948 remains the coin that defines the type.
The removal of IND:IMP: (Indiae Imperator — Emperor of India) from George VI's royal titles followed Indian independence in August 1947, but the Royal Canadian Mint had already struck its entire 1948 die inventory with the old legend. The result was a catastrophic shortage: only 37,784 fifty-cent pieces were struck for 1948, making it by far the key date of the series and one of the genuinely scarce circulation issues in twentieth-century Canadian coinage.
Production recovered sharply in subsequent years, but the 1948 remains the coin that defines the type.