1966 Canada Silver Half Dollar NGC PL 67 Cameo

A Canadian fifty cent piece of 1966, struck as a proof-like rather than for circulation and certified by NGC at PL 67 Cameo under certificate 5825448-017. Composition is .800 fine silver at 11.66 grams, an actual silver weight of 9.33 grams, or 0.300 troy ounce. The cameo is what carries this one. The fields are mirrored and the devices come up frosted against them, the contrast reading strongest across the Queen's portrait and across the lion and unicorn of the arms. PL 67 sits near the top of the proof-like scale, and the surfaces here are close enough to as struck that the flaws are a magnification question rather than an eye one. The reverse is Thomas Shingles's stylized arms of Canada, the lion and the unicorn holding the shield between them, the crowned lion above and the motto A MARI USQUE AD MARE on the ribbon below, with CANADA, the date and 50 CENTS around. The obverse is Arnold Machin's tiara portrait of Elizabeth II, the portrait Canadian coinage took up in 1965. The coin runs 29.72 mm across a reeded edge. Photographed sealed in the NGC holder from both sides, and close on each face, so the mirrors and the frost can be read.