Canada’s 2023 Loon Dollar Mintage Falls to 275,000 as King Charles Portrait Waits

Canada’s 2023 coin year stands out for two reasons: no coin dated 2023 entered circulation with King Charles III’s portrait, and the reported circulation-strike Loon Dollar mintage is just 275,000. For collectors tracking modern Canadian decimal coins, that small production total is the more immediate marker of the year.

The Royal Canadian Mint did not put the new King’s portrait on any 2023-dated coinage, according to the source. The first conspicuous sign came with the Coronation issues unveiled on May 6. Those gold and silver coins carried Queen Elizabeth’s portrait on the obverse, even though she had died eight months earlier. The result was an unusual pairing: coins marking Charles’s Coronation with the image of the previous monarch.

There was a practical collecting consequence as well. The source reports that Australia, the United Kingdom and the British Antarctic Territory had either issued King Charles coinage or shown designs by this point. The Royal Mint’s example is available through its King Charles III effigy page. Collectors comparing new portraits across Commonwealth issues could already look to those releases, while Canadian collectors had no 2023-dated Charles coin to add to the comparison.

A year without circulating 2023 coinage

The portrait delay was only part of the story. The source says Canada would have no 2023-dated circulating coinage at all. The year’s business-strike coins were limited to collector roll sets offered earlier in the year, along with coins included in Uncirculated and Reconciliation Gift sets. The roll sets reportedly sold out in 15 minutes.

That distinction matters when reading the mintage figures. A coin made for a collector set may be a business strike, but it does not follow that it was produced for everyday circulation. The source describes 275,000 2023 Loon Dollars as the circulation-strike mintage, while noting that the year’s available business strikes came through limited collector products and sets. For collectors, the packaging and intended distribution are part of the context for interpreting the number.

The Loon Dollar figures in context

The reported recent circulation-strike mintages show how sharply 2023 differs from the preceding years listed:

• 2018: 33.93 million
• 2019: 23.67 million
• 2020: 12.64 million
• 2021: 24.87 million
• 2022: Unknown
• 2023: 275,000

The source characterizes the 2023 total as approximately 1.5% of the usual average mintage and says it makes this the scarcest circulating Loon Dollar since the series began 36 years earlier. The comparison is striking, though the 2022 figure is unknown in the table, so the listed numbers don’t give a complete year-by-year record. They do show that 275,000 is far below every earlier figure provided.

Low production is a useful reason to pay attention to a coin, but it doesn’t tell the whole story of any individual example. Condition, strike quality, signs of handling and the coin’s original packaging all help collectors distinguish pieces. For set coins, keeping the packaging with the coin can also preserve useful information about how it was distributed. The source mentions a special on certified 2023 Loon Dollars offered elsewhere; it provides no price or grading details here, so those specifics can’t be assessed from the article.

What collectors will be watching

The next point of interest is when Charles III’s portrait will appear on Canadian coinage. The source says the timing and plans were still unclear, with collectors facing a wait into the second year after Queen Elizabeth’s death before the portrait might appear in Canadian change. That leaves a gap between the rapid portrait transition seen in some other territories and Canada’s 2023 output.

For now, the 2023 Loon Dollar combines a remarkably small reported circulation-strike total with a year in which no coinage bore the new King’s image. Collectors can follow two separate threads: whether future Canadian issues introduce Charles III, and how the 2023 mintage is ultimately documented alongside the still-unknown 2022 total. Those details will help place this unusual year in the modern Loon Dollar series.

Sean Isaacs