The Royal Canadian Mint produces some of the world’s most beautiful coins, which it promotes to collectors through a variety of high-quality marketing materials. Ascribe has established an on-call relationship with the Mint that includes copyediting and proofreading its marketing brochures and catalogues.

How Ascribe helped

Since 2010, our team has frequently been called on to support the Mint’s in-house editorial team by copyediting its monthly catalogues, which showcase the latest offerings in bullion and numismatic coins. Most of these coins are themed in some way, depicting images of important people or moments in Canadian history, holidays and other special events, animals and nature, pop-culture icons, and more. Each featured coin requires a brief but enticing write-up encouraging catalogue subscribers to buy for their own collection or as a gift — something to describe what makes the coin interesting or unique, like an innovative engraving technique or eye-catching application of colour.

For each issue, we start by copyediting the initial Mint-developed draft of the catalogue in Microsoft Word, strengthening the logic and flow of each coin description, recommending engaging headlines and callouts, and ensuring consistency in tone and style throughout. We’re always careful to maintain the playful and friendly voice preferred by the Mint, balanced with easy-to-understand explanations of how the coins were created or designed. This is followed later by a proofread of the layout PDF, a final check to ensure the catalogue is as polished as the coins being featured.

By making the catalogues more engaging — with copy that’s clear and direct in the way it spotlights new coin technologies along with the stories behind the latest coin designs — our team is helping raise awareness of the Mint’s broad range of products among investors and collectors alike.

Over the years our writers and editors have also worked on numerous other pieces for the Mint, often within short timeframes. This includes blogs, e-books and buyers’ guides, case studies, newsletters, magazine ads, fact sheets, white papers, and presentations and speaking notes.

Deliverable: Website

Our process:

• Copyediting in Microsoft Word
• Proofreading of layout PDF