It weighs 100 kg (220.5 lb), is 53 cm (21 inches) in diameter, and 3 cm thick.
The Royal Canadian Mint created the coin in 2007 – and minted just five of them – to show off its production skills, and steal the entry in the Guinness Book of Records for the world’s biggest gold coin.
This record was previously held by the Austrian mint, which in 2004 produced fifteen 100,000-euro coins weighing 1,000 troy ounces (31.1 kg) to celebrate the 15th anniversary of its best-selling Philharmonics coin.
While its face value of just $1 million dollar, the coin shown above sold at auction for 3.27 million euros, which is over US$4,500,000. At the time, that price was pretty much the exact spot price for the amount of gold in the coin.
As bullion, the coin is just a curiosity. It’s something to showcase, as a display of wealth.
For the rest of us, buying gold coins in one-ounce increments is just fine.