Big Nickel - Fund Raising

Fund Raising

Not yet financially secure, Szilva needed investors in order to make the dream a reality. Three men from Sudbury indicated that they would invest, but when the time came, they refused to put any money into Szilva’s new company, Nickel Monument Development Ltd.

Szilva eventually owned 99.9% of the shares of the company. In order to raise the money for the development of the project, Szilva had a series of commemorative coins struck which represented each of the monuments to be erected at the park. To have worldwide appeal, he conceived the idea for a numismatic park and called it the Canadian Centennial Numismatic Park. The Big Nickel would be its centrepiece. The uniqueness of this park is what appealed to the numismatists around the world. They purchased the medallions in order to support the construction and development of the park.

One such medallion package, mailed out to purchasers in 1964 from Nickel Monument Development contained three coins and a descriptive project brochure. Two of the coins were identical silver dollar sized .999 silver content Kennedy commemorative coins. The third was a silver dollar sized copper-coloured Kennedy commemorative coin. All three coins were identically marked on the obverse with a Kennedy profile above the words 'In God We Trust, 1964' surrounded by 'Canadian Centennial Numismatic Park, Sudbury, Canada'. On the reverse, each was marked with an eternal flame above the words 'And so let the word go forth that the torch has been lit,' and the words 'John Fitzgerald Kennedy 1917.1963'. The brochure discussed the medallions, the park ('Canada's Most Unique Tourist Attraction—Canadian Centennial Numismatic Park'), other fundraising ideas and planned future attractions.

In December 1963 Szilva had earned enough funds through mail-order sales to proceed with the first phase of the proposed development. He chose the 1951 five-cent piece and “coined” the phrase "The Big Nickel". Artist Steve Trenka designed the 1951 five-cent piece. His rendition of a nickel refinery was not based on any actual complex, though some believed it to be the INCO refinery in Sudbury. In 1951 the INCO smelter had three stacks, not one (unlike the five-cent piece) and the Inco Superstack which supposedly appeared in the centre of the buildings, was not erected until 1971. It would seem that The Big Nickel was the cause of these rumours, because of the similarity of its design to the five-cent coin and its proximity to the INCO complex.

The 1951 design was chosen for the Big Nickel since it marked the bicentennial of the chemical isolation of nickel by the Swedish chemist Baron Axel Frederic Cronstedt. This metal, of course, played a large role in the establishment of Sudbury as a mining town.

Before 1751, the element now known as nickel played havoc with refiners. Thought to be an alloy of copper, German miners coined the term, “Kupfernickel” or “Old Nick’s Copper”. This “Devil’s Copper” could not be extracted with the technology of the time. Cronstedt, however, was able to prove that the trouble refiners faced was due to an unknown element which he named nickel.

Szilva ultimately chose the 1951 Canadian nickel, minted by the Canadian Mint in 1951, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the isolation of nickel as a metal, to show where Sudbury’s wealth came from, and to be a lasting tribute to the men and women who mined and processed the minerals in the Sudbury Basin. In short, the nickel was intended to exhibit Sudbury’s pride to the whole world.