Item: i103005

Authentic Coin of:

Canada - Canadian Aviation Series
1993 Proof Silver Dollar 37mm (31.10 grams) 0.925 Silver (0.925 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 237
ELIZABETH II D·G·REGINA·, Queen Elizabeth II facing right.
CANADA 20 DOLLARS RRC, Lockheed 14, Zebulon  Lewis Leigh in 24-karat gold-plated cameo.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.

  The Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra, more commonly known as the Lockheed 14, was a civil passenger and cargo aircraft built by the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation during the late 1930s. An outgrowth of the earlier Model 10 Electra, the Model 14 was also developed into larger, more capable civil and military versions.

The Model 14 entered commercial service with Northwest Airlines in the US in October 1937. Aircraft were exported for use by Aer Lingus of Ireland, British Airways and KLM of the Netherlands. The Model 14 was the basis for development of the Lockheed Hudson maritime reconnaissance and light bomber aircraft operated by the Royal Air Force, USAAF, United States Navy and many others during World War II.

In 1938, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, after signing the Munich Agreement, returned to London Heston Airport on board a British Airways Lockheed 14, and was famously photographed beside the aircraft (registration G-AFGN showing to the crowd the signed document, which he would later that day describe as bringing "peace for our time".

Record-breaking flights

In May 1938, a team of aviators of the Polish airline LOT, made up of Wacław Makowski, director of LOT and first pilot, Zbigniew Wysiekierski, second pilot, Szymon Piskorz, mechanic and radionavigator, Alfons Rzeczewski, radio-navigator and Jerzy Krassowski, assistant, accomplished an experimental flight from the United States to Poland. This flight was carried out on board one of the aircraft bought by LOT, manufactured by Lockheed in California, a Lockheed Model 14H Super Electra (of which the Polish registration was SP-LMK. The crew took off from Burbank (Los Angeles) where these aircraft were manufactured, and after a tour of South America, flew the Atlantic from Brazil to West Africa en route to Warsaw. A poster celebrating the flight can be seen in a US Library of Congress/Matson Archive photo of the LOT/Imperial Airways Sales office in Jerusalem about 1939.

The distance covered was of 15,441 mi (24,850 km; 13,418 nmi). They flew via the cities of Mazatlan, Mexico City, Guatemala, and Panama, then via the South American cities of Lima, Peru; Santiago, Chile; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Rio de Janeiro and Natal in Brazil. They flew across the South Atlantic to Dakar, Senegal, in Africa and then to Casablanca, Tunis, and then on to Rome, Italy. The final leg of the flight brought them to Warsaw, Poland. The flying time was 85 hours between 13 May and 5 June. The overflight of the Atlantic - from Natal to Dakar - lasted 11 hours and 10 minutes (1,908 mi/3,070 km). This feat by Polish aviators marked the history of air communication on a world level. (Prior to this flight airliners were delivered across the Atlantic as deck cargo on ships 

Howard Hughes flew a Super Electra (NX18973) on a global circumnavigation flight. With four crewmates (Harry Connor, copilot; Tom Thurlow, navigator; Richard Stoddart, engineer; and Ed Lund, mechanic), the Lockheed 14 took off from Floyd Bennett Field in New York on July 10, 1938. The flight, which circled the narrower northern latitudes, passed through Paris, Moscow, Omsk, Yakutsk, Fairbanks, Alaska and Minneapolis before returning to New York. The total distance flown was 14,672 mi (23,612 km) and total time was 3 days, 19 hours, 17 minutes.

Canada is a country, consisting of ten provinces and three territories, in the northern part of the continent of North America. It extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres (3.85 million square miles) in total, making it the world's second-largest country by total area and the fourth-largest country by land area. Canada's common border with the United States forms the world's longest land border. Canada is sparsely populated overall, the majority of its land territory being dominated by forest and tundra as well as the mountain range of the Rocky Mountains; about four-fifths of the population live near to the southern border. The majority of Canada has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer.

The land now called Canada has been inhabited for millennia by various Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French colonies were established on the region's Atlantic coast. As a consequence of various conflicts, the United Kingdom gained and lost North American territories until left, in the late 18th century, with what mostly comprises Canada today. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1, 1867, three colonies joined to form the autonomous federal Dominion of Canada. This began an accretion of provinces and territories to the new self-governing Dominion. In 1931, Britain granted Canada near total independence with the Statute of Westminster 1931 and full sovereignty was attained when the Canada Act 1982 severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British parliament.

Canada is a federal parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, Queen Elizabeth II being the current head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries, with a population of approximately 35 million as of 2015. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade networks. Canada's long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture.

Canada is a developed country and one of the wealthiest in the world, with the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally, and the eighth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, and education. Canada is a Commonwealth Realm member of the Commonwealth of Nations, a member of the Francophonie, and part of several major international and intergovernmental institutions or groupings including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the G8, the Group of Ten, the G20, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.