Maple Leaf Rag about the sales of the "Maple Leaf Rag", for example that 1 million copies of the sheet music were sold in the composer's lifetime, making Scott Joplin the first musician to sell 1 million copies of a piece of instrumental music. Joplin's first biographer Rudi Blesh wrote that during its first six months the piece sold 75,000 copies, and became "the first great instrumental sheet music hit in America". However, research by Joplin's later biographer Edward A. Berlin demonstrated that this was not the case; the initial print-run of 400 took one year to sell, and under the terms of
1947 Maple Leaf modified matrices and punches from the Royal Mint in London, demand for new coinage rose. To satisfy this demand, the RCM struck coins using the 1947 dies with the leaf added to signify the incorrect date. Normal 1948 coins were minted and issued once the modified matrices and punches arrived. 1947 Maple Leaf The 1947 Maple Leaf refers to a set of Canadian coins dated 1947 which bear a tiny maple leaf following the date to denote that they were actually minted in 1948. Prior to 1948, the obverse legend surrounding the bust of George VI on Canadian coins read