In April 1998, the Mint announced the Millennium Coin Design Contest, a contest open to all Canadians to submit designs for twenty-four millennium quarters, one for each month of 1999 and 2000. The 1999 designs were meant to look back on Canada's past, while the 2000 designs looked to the future. While the 1999 coins were labeled with their month of issue, the 2000 coins were labeled with the relevant themes.
Design:
The obverse design features Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at 64 years old, wearing a new crown, surrounded by the Latin inscription "ELIZABETH II D. G. REGINA". This was the first effigy to be designed by a Canadian, Dora de Pédery-Hunt.
Designed by Cezar ?erb?nescu, the coin features an elderly person, representing the last millennium and sharing at daylight the Canadian heritage, symbolized by the maple leaf, with the new millennium, embodied by youth. It is surrounded with the bilingual inscriptions "CANADA" and "WISDOM 2000 SAGESSE".
Face Value: 25 cents
Mintage: 33,993,016
Composition: 94% steel, 3.8% copper, 2.2% nickel plating
Weight (g): 4.4
Diameter (mm): 23.88
Finish: BU