Puzzle Coin Set (2025) – Mintage: 1,100

The Lunar cycle unfolds across this puzzle coin set – the first of its kind with black rhodium plating. Order today!

The Moon is a powerful force in the natural world, where moonlight and Moon phases can influence everything from wildlife navigation to birdsong. Using selective black rhodium plating to create a high-contrast night view, this wildlife-themed Puzzle Coin Set traces the Lunar cycle across its eight coins: one round centrepiece and seven puzzle-shaped outer pieces. The outer pieces share the same engraved design, but one by one, different Moon phases and animals emerge from under the cover of darkness, as the rhodium plating yields to a portion of the engraving, allowing these silver elements to tell the story. Meanwhile, the Full Moon at the centre casts its silver light on the landscape, offering you a glimpse of what goes on in the wild after dark.

Our first black-rhodium-plated puzzle coin set!  Order today!

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Inspired by the Moon’s influence on nature. Step inside a beautiful nocturnal landscape: this wildlife-themed Puzzle Coin Set takes a closer look at the phases of the Moon, with the entire Lunar cycle unfolding across its eight (8) coins.
• A first for us. This is the first time we’ve (selectively) applied black rhodium plating to a puzzle coin set, which is crafted in 99.99% pure silver.
• A challenging design. The plating plunges the design into darkness, setting the tone for a dramatic night view, while the non-plated elements on each coin reveal a different Moon phase and animal – a storytelling feature that was very challenging to execute.

• Using contrast to tell the story. The seven outer pieces all share the same engraved design featuring the Moon, a Great Horned Owl, white-tailed deer, grizzly bears, little brown bats, wolves, a North American beaver and a Common Nighthawk. Only a portion of the Moon and one species are unobscured by black rhodium on each puzzle piece, where these silver elements tell the story.
• Same size as the 2023 set. Your Puzzle Coin Set consists of a round centrepiece and seven puzzle-shaped outer pieces.
• Only 1,100 sets. Mintage is very low, with only 1,100 sets available to collectors worldwide.
• Includes mini booklet. Each 2025 Puzzle Coin Set comes with a mini booklet that describes the design elements on each puzzle piece.
• Includes serialized certificate. The Royal Canadian Mint certifies all of its collector coins.
• No GST/HST.

DESIGN

Inspired by the Lunar cycle and the Moon’s influence on nature, the assembled eight-piece puzzle set features a reverse design by artist Caitlin Lindstrom-Milne, with black rhodium plating setting the tone for a nighttime view.

The round centrepiece features a nocturnal landscape inhabited by bats, wolves and bears, and illuminated by a full Moon that appears larger near the horizon, allowing a clear view of its surface features. Around this central piece, seven interconnecting, puzzle-shaped pieces share the same engraved, forest-themed design. On each piece, selective black rhodium plating conceals most of the engraving in order to reveal a different Moon phase and a known nocturnal or crepuscular Canadian animal (clockwise from the right/3 o’clock position): white-tailed deer  for the new Moon; a Great Horned Owl for the waxing crescent; wolves for the first quarter; a North American beaver for the waxing gibbous; a Common Nighthawk  for the waning gibbous; grizzly bears for the third quarter; and little brown bats for the waning crescent Moon.

Each coin’s obverse features the effigy of His Majesty King Charles III by Canadian artist Steven Rosati.

DID YOU KNOW?

The Moon is the biggest and brightest object in our night sky, and the luminance of a full Moon is about 250 times greater than that of a new Moon night. The extra light makes it easier to see your surroundings at night, but it also helps visual predators, meaning prey species may be at higher risk of predation during that Moon phase. The Lunar cycle repeats every 29.5 days.

PACKAGING

Your puzzle coin set comes encapsulated and presented in a Royal Canadian Mint-branded wood case with a black beauty box. Also included is a mini booklet that describes the design elements on each puzzle piece.

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

The Artist:

I had a lot of fun designing this particular coin, and through researching the theme, I got to learn how different animals react to the Lunar cycle. I thought it would be nice to feature a mix of animals that reside in water, land and sky, but the size constraints proved challenging: trying to fit seven animals into one cohesive illustration required some trial and error, and I ended up taking some artistic liberties in terms of their sizes in relation to each other. Still, precise placement and consistency are important when designing a puzzle coin set – for example, we had to make sure the Moon was not only the same design on each piece, but also in the exact same place. It took a lot of teamwork to get it all just right! – Caitlin Lindstrom-Milne, Artist

The Product Manager:

The 2025 Puzzle Coin set has been one of the most challenging and rewarding projects I’ve worked on so far. There were a lot of challenges to overcome when applying black rhodium plating to an irregular coin shape for the first time, but we wanted to get it right because it elevates the beauty of the design and is essential to the storytelling. Thinking creatively and working in close collaboration with the artist, our team of engravers and engineers played a pivotal role in bringing this concept to life. My hope is that the many hours of work that went into this project translate into a collectible piece that will be cherished for generations. – Alicia Cook Sapene, Product Manager

The Engravers:

This was a cool project to work on thanks to the variety of animals and my close collaboration with a fellow engraver. Between the Moon, landscape and animal fur, there is tons of texture on the centre coin. The animals were first treated as if they were bald, because we had to get the musculature correct; only then did we place the fur on top. But I think the grass field took me the longest, and lots of patience was required – the first level alone contains over 90 individual blades, with many crossing over each other, and these all had to be done separately. – Matt Bowen, Engraver (centre piece)

The rhodium plating didn’t affect my engraving, though it did complicate our frosting decisions: we created test coins and divided them into quadrants, each with a different frosting; we then plated half of each quadrant to see what those frostings looked like under the black rhodium before deciding on what to use. The real challenge was the amount of detail and overlapping layers in the outer piece, given the piece’s unique shape. Sculpting that much detail, with so many overlapping elements and the animals looking at us head-on, was a challenge – not to mention working with extreme caution on the master tooling to ensure none of that detail got lost. But it’s what I enjoy about the process, and seeing the final coin after so much delicate work is quite the reward. – Samantha Strath, 3D Artist-Engraver (outer piece)