Canada 20 Dollars Silver Coin 1992 The de Havilland Gipsy Moth
Powered Flight in Canada: The first 50 years
Obverse: Profile portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II created in 1990 and notable for the grand jewelled tiara and a beautiful string of pearls, this royal effigy was designed by Canadian artist Dora de Pedery-Hunt.
Reverse: De Havilland Gypsy Moth light aircraft. Portrait of Murton Adams Seymour in 24-karat gold-plated cameo, denomination below.
Lettering: CANADA 20 DOLLARS.
Engraver: John Mardon.
Edge: Reeded & Plain Sections.
Diameter: 38 mm.
Weight: 31.103 g.
Material: Silver.
Fineness: 0.925.
Denomination: 20 Canadian Dollars.
Produced By: Royal Canadian Mint.
Murton Adams Seymour
Murton Adams Seymour (July 6, 1892, St. Catherines, Ontario - December 27, 1976)
Murton Seymour was a law student before learning to fly at a Vancouver race track in 1916. The Royal Flying Corps later commissioned him in the Special Reserve to attend the School of Aeronautics at Oxford University, England where he graduated as a pilot. During WWI Seymour flew RE-8 fighter aircraft from an advanced base in Belgium and was later placed in charge of designing two important pilot training facilities. The first was Camp Borden in Ontario, and the second was located in Fort Worth, Texas. Before he left the service, Seymour served as a lawyer for the RCAF but his legacy to aviation is his dedication to flying clubs. In 1928, he incorporated the St. Catherines Flying Club and later he became a founding member and director of the Canadian Flying Clubs Association.
de Havilland Moth
The de Havilland Moths were a series of light aircraft, sports planes and military trainers designed by Geoffrey de Havilland. In the late 1920s and 1930s they were the most common civil aircraft flying in Britain and during that time every light aircraft flying in the UK was commonly referred to as a 'Moth', regardless if it was de Havilland-built or not.
The first Moth was the DH.60: a straight-winged biplane two-seater. To enable storing the plane in small spaces, the DH.60's wings could fold backwards against the fuselage. "Like a moth" remarked Geoffrey de Havilland, an avid lepidopterist, and so the plane was nicknamed Moth from the drawing board on.
The 'Moth' was one of the first practical light aircraft designs to be intended for civilian training and recreational use, rather than for military buyers. The Moth was also one of the first light aircraft to be mass-produced and was available to a much wider section of the general public than previous aircraft designs.
First variations of the name began with changes in the engine used for the DH.60: Variants with a Cirrus Hermes, Armstrong Siddeley Genet and de Havilland Gipsy engine became Hermes Moth, Genet Moth and Gipsy Moth respectively. (The original ADC Cirrus powered DH.60 retroactively became the Cirrus Moth.) As the DH.60 became more and more popular, de Havilland decided to cash in on the fame of the original by giving each of his new designs a name ending with Moth.
First of them was the DH.61: a giant 5-passenger biplane aptly called Giant Moth. Other Moths include the Leopard Moth and Hornet Moth cabin biplanes, the Puss Moth cabin monoplane and the Moth Minor low-wing two-seater. The most famous of the moths however, if nothing then for sheer numbers, is the DH.82 Tiger Moth: a biplane trainer used during World War II in Britain and the Commonwealth of Nations and the aircraft on which all World War II RAF pilots learned to fly.
Canadian Coins
Canada 20 Dollars Silver Coin 1992 The de Havilland Gipsy Moth