Coins and Canada - Canadian Silver Dollars

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Canadian Silver Dollars - Voyageurs and Commemoratives

Starr Gilmore - 1961

A few words of explanation may be of help and interest to the reader. This book is exactly what it purports to be: a history of Canada's silver dollars and their background.

In no sense of the word a technical work, it is an honest attempt to answer as many questions as possible concerning various situations which centre about these highly interesting coins. More than a few of us are not satisfied with the mere possession of a coin, we wish also to know the why of it, and failing that, our interest fails also. A person who has a library full of beautiful books and yet knows nothing about them might excite our astonishment, but hardly our commendation; it is exactly so of coins.

My early collecting experiences were not of the happiest, a thing common enough in the background of many others. Becoming almost at the beginning interested in the dollars, I wanted to know their history and all factual information concerning them. Answers of a sort were given me, but scarcely of a satisfactory kind, with the natural result that my disappointment was considerable. It was during this time that I began to wish that somebody had taken the trouble to write a book which would be an adequate answer to my questions. Of course, there being no such book, my frustration continued.

It was a chance letter of enquiry which finally led to this book, an enquiry about the Arnprior dollars. At the time the letter was written me, I knew very little about them, but I did eventually find out what they were and the experience proved fascinating. Success having crowned my first modest venture, it seemed to me as though I might as well go the whole way and learn as much as possible.

Letters were directed to every source of information that I thought might prove helpful. I was more than agreeably surprised by the aid that was cheerfully and generously given. An unbelievably high average of letters were answered and failure was the rare exception. The success attained at home was fully equaled by the success attained abroad.

To the more curiously inclined, the book is solidly based on a file of more than three hundred letters that are devoted to the single subject of Canadian dollars. The mosaic of the letters, bits of information here and there, have been put together to make the complete design evidenced in the book. Not so much mine as that of many, the work embodies the knowledge and experiences of collectors all over the world.

A sufficient excuse for the book, would be the fact that so much time and energy spent on a subject should assuredly see an end result of some kind and this book is the end result. No person giving help has gone knowingly unacknowledged and my warm thanks are extended to all who have been so generous with time and assistance. It is my sincere hope that the book will meet a genuine need and become useful in the field of numismatics.

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