Big Maple Leaf
The Big Maple Leaf is a $1 million gold coin weighing . A set of five of these coins was produced by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007, at their Ottawa facility where the first BML produced remains in storage.
The Big Maple Leaf was recognized by the Guinness World Records in 2007 not only for its status as the world's biggest gold coin but also for its unparalleled gold purity of 99.999 per cent.
On 27 March 2017, one of the coins, valued approximately $4 million at the time, was stolen from a Berlin museum.
As of September 2025, the market value of a single Big Maple Leaf had reached $12 million.
The Big Maple Leaf remained the largest gold coin ever minted until 2011, when the 1 tonne Australian Gold Nugget was minted.
Description
A Big Maple Leaf measures thick and in diameter and is 999.99/1000 pure. The obverse of the BML shows Queen Elizabeth II as she has appeared on Canadian coinage as of 2003, when Susanna Blunt's design became the third iteration of the queen's effigy to appear on coinage. Blunt's design was intended to show the queen "in maturing dignity", without a tiara or crown,. The reverse design is the stylized maple leaf by RCM artist and senior engraver Stan Witten.Theft of one coin
In the early hours of 27 March 2017, a Big Maple Leaf was stolen from the Münzkabinett of the Bode Museum in Berlin, Germany. The cabinet is known for its huge collection of coins – more than 500,000 pieces, among them more than 100,000 Greek and 50,000 Roman ones – though only a fraction of these coins are shown at exhibits.The coin was lent to the Bode Museum in 2010 by private owner Boris Fuchsmann, and was displayed there until it was stolen.
In July 2017, police raids took place and arrests were made in connection with the theft. The suspects come from a family clan from Lebanon notorious for organised crime. Berlin Police assume that the coin was damaged during the theft when it was dropped from the train tracks onto the street.
In January 2019, a trial in a juvenile court against four suspects began. Two brothers, Ahmed and Wayci Remmo, and their cousin Wissam Remmo, all belonged to a Berlin crime family of Lebanese origin known to local police as the. The fourth person, Denis W., was a school friend of the Remmo's and an employee of the Bode Museum. Denis was found guilty of advising the others on the museum's safety protocols. The trial ended in February 2020 with Ahmed and Wissam being sentenced to years and Denis being sentenced to 3 years 4 months, the lenient sentencing being a result of them being relatively young during the crime. The fourth defendant, Wayci Remmo, was acquitted due to inconclusive evidence. The judge ordered the seizure of 3.4 million Euros from the defendants.
Fuchsmann's insurance paid only 20% of the coin's value, arguing that negligence by the museum was to blame for the loss. After a lawsuit, the insurance company was ordered to pay 50% of the value.
The whereabouts of the gold coin remain unknown. Investigators do not expect to recover the coin as they found highly pure gold dust matching the Big Maple Leaf on seized clothing and a car, and suspect the robbers may have melted the coin down and sold the gold.