2019 Canada Dollar 70th Anniversary Newfoundland Joining Canada 5oz Proof Fine Silver

This 70th anniversary tribute to Newfoundland's status as a province of Canada, double-dated 1949-2019, is much larger than the original. Pictured on the reverse is The Matthew, the ship historians believe John Cabot was sailing when he discovered Newfoundland. The detailed rendering of the ship is made more impressive by the fact that the original design was hand-carved in miniature—and directly into steel—by one of the most illustrious figures in our history: Thomas Shingles, Master Engraver of the Royal Canadian Mint (1943-1965). Below the ship reads the Latin inscription "FLOREAT TERRA NOVA", which means "May the New Found Land Flourish."

As it appeared on the 1949 silver dollar, the original reverse design by Thomas Shingles commemorates Newfoundland’s entry into Canadian Confederation on March 31, 1949. It represents The Matthew, the ship presumably sailed by explorer John Cabot when he reached the coast of Newfoundland in 1497. The image of the three-masted ship under full sail was based on a model and taken from a photograph. Beneath the water lies the Latin inscription “FLOREAT TERRA NOVA”—“May the New Found Land Flourish”. The obverse features the effigy of King George VI by T. H. Paget.

Thomas Shingles (1904-1984) joined the Royal Canadian Mint in 1939 and became Master Engraver in 1943. As he had done with the Victory Nickel, Shingles prepared the master tooling for the 1949 Newfoundland Commemorative dollar entirely by hand in the span of just five weeks, carefully carving the design in miniature directly onto the steel matrix. Shingles retired in 1965 but continued to work as an artist, and won the design competition for a 1971 silver dollar that marked the centennial of another province’s entry into Confederation: British Columbia