One of five of the largest gold coins ever minted is to be made available for sale in Ireland and the UK, according to GoldCore, the international brokerage firm which has secured the rights for the sale.

The coin — not one you can just put in your pocket — is a Canadian bullion coin minted in 2007, with a face value of $1 million. It weighs 100 kilos and contains 3,215 troy ounces of gold.

The 100kg coin was originally conceived as a unique showpiece and only five were minted. With the Canadian maple leaf symbol on the obverse, designed by the Mint artist and engraver Stan Witten, the coin has a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on the reverse side, from a work by Canadian artist Susanna Blunt.

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Another feature of the coin is its purity. The Royal Canadian Mint succeeded in the technically complex task of creating a coin which is virtually pure gold, with a composition of 0.9999 pure gold, or 24 carat. Such a level of purity is suitable, of course, only for items which will not be in daily use, due to the softness and wear factor of refined gold.

No asking price or reserve has been stated for the coin, which measures 750 millimetres in diameter, but as the other four are in private hands it is certain that the buyer will have to stump up a good deal more than the value of the gold content, let alone the face value.

Our starting guide point for potential Irish bidders: 100 kilos of gold this morning would set you back around €3.5 million.

GoldCore, led by Mark O'Byrne, was established in Dublin in 2003 and has clients in more than 45 countries.