2020 Proof Set with V-E Day Commemorative Silver Dollar

This affordable special-edition proof set continues the Royal Canadian Mint's annual series started in the early 1970s featuring spectacular double-struck proof versions of all of Canada's circulation coins, plus a half-dollar coin and a pure silver commemorative dollar. The silver dollar marks the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe during the Second World War, featuring a Royal Canadian Navy design with a selectively coloured Naval Ensign from the era of 1945. Denominations include the five-cent, 10-cent, 25-cent, 50-cent, loon-style dollar, commemorative silver dollar and two-dollar coins. The five-cent coin also features a special-edition "V for victory" design.

The annual proof set is an ideal way to collect superb double-struck proof-quality examples of each Canadian denomination, and also serves as a perfect gift to mark the birth of a child, a graduation, or any important 2020 milestone.

Design
On the 2020 special edition silver dollar coin, the reverse design by artist Maskull Lasserre is a V-E Day ("V") salute to the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN). A coloured pre-1965 Naval Ensign provides a stirring backdrop for the engraved depiction of a member of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS) and two members of the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) standing on the foredeck of a Tribal-class destroyer. The obverse features the effigy of King George VI by T. H. Paget and a Victory privy mark.

May 8, 1945: The RCN
The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous battle of the Second World War. And until the battle officially ended on V-E Day, Canada's navy continued to be a central participant.

The Royal Canadian Navy's most significant contribution to the Allied victory was through its work as a convoy escort force. In the last two years of the war, all air and surface escorts in the northwest Atlantic were operating under Canadian command (the only theatre of the war that was not under British or American command). And by May 8, 1945, RCN ships and crews had assured the safe passage of more than 25,000 merchant ships and the delivery of 165 million tons of vital supplies to Great Britain.

In 1945, the RCN was one of the world's largest navies with 434 commissioned vessels, and had proven its capabilities well beyond the transatlantic shipping routes: 

• In the Mediterranean Sea, RCN ships and crews had taken part in the North African campaign in 1942 and 1943, in the Sicily and Italian campaigns that began in 1943, and in Allied operations in the eastern Mediterranean (Greece) in 1944.
• In the Arctic, RCN ships (like the Tribal-class destroyer on the 2020 special edition silver dollar) escorted convoys on the Murmansk Run, said to be the most dangerous operation due to extreme conditions.
• Off the coast of occupied Europe, where Canadian ships had taken part in Operation Neptune (D-Day), the RCN continued to support the army's seaward flank as it pushed into Northwest Europe in 1944 and 1945. RCN Bangor-class minesweepers also joined in the international effort to clear European waters after V-E Day.
• In the Pacific, where the war continued after Germany's surrender, HMCS Uganda played a support role in the invasion of Okinawa in May 1945 and served as an anti-aircraft guard until July 1945. 

The RCN was able to do it all without battleships and submarines. Canada's shipyards had supplied the RCN with 224 Canadian-built frigates, minesweepers and corvettes, the unlikely heroes of the anti-U-boat war. It had lost 24 warships, but its ships shared in the sinking of 29 enemy submarines. And of the nearly 2,000 members of the RCN who lost their lives at sea during the war, most were killed in the Battle of the Atlantic.

• Mintage: 20,000

Includes:
• 2020 V-E Day Special Edition Proof Set

Delivery Information:
• Due to the closure of the Royal Canadian Mint, there will be a delay on RCM shipments; coins will be released and shipped in August