Submitted by Padgriffin t3_y7xaxy in todayilearned
They were called voyageur dollars or silver dollars (although they hadn't been silver since 1967) when they were still being produced.
I was cleaning out the garage at my great uncles and I found a tin can full of Canadian and American silver dollars and half-dollars. Super cool find. I really like the design on the voyageur dollars. Half-dollars are cool too, kind of wish they were still in circulation
Up until silver got phased out, silver dollars and fifty cent pieces did circulate to a fair extent. Not entirely sure why the switch to nickel made them circulate less; I know I've never received either as change, even back in the 80s.
I've been in some people's homes where they had litterally hundreds of silver coins.
There was a common belief amongst some people at the time that the government decided to switch to nickel because the price of silver was going to skyrocket. In response a lot of people would habitually remove any silver coins from their change and store them at home, hoping to cash in later.
Stemming from that, the Canadian government started minting a massive amount of new quarters to replace the old ones which were being removed by the general populace. You can check out the minting numbers here.
The number of half dollars that they minted at that point also went up, but not anywhere near to the level that quarters were being minted.
When the dust settled after that change, we got hit with a major recession in the 80s. The combined inflation between 1980 and 1987 was ~64%.
Before that date of 1987 half dollars were minted at numbers comparable to the number of full dollar coins. But at that point the government cut production of half dollar coins by -90% per year, and pumped out 500,000,000 million loonies by the end of 1990 only 3 years later. For reference, the total number of 1 dollar coins in circulation in 1985 was something like 100,000,000, so they literally multiplied the total number of Canadian one dollar coins in existence by a factor of 6 in only 3 years.
At that point half dollars unofficially became collectors items rather than legal tender, even if they still could be used as the latter.
The fifty cent piece was expensive to produce, large and not considered to be a core part of Canadian coinage, so to save money, they haven't been minted in circulating quantities in quite some time. Still legal tender and in proof and collector sets, but it was decided that the cost wasn't worth the return for wide circulation.
Some of this actually had to do with the advent of the Vending Machine. Because Canadian and US coinage is so similar and basically interchangeable in the old mechanical machines, up until the loonie, you could make one mechanism that worked for 2 major markets. Big win. Add in parking meters and the likes, and the day to day things that relied on change now don't take a 50c coin, so it also became more obsolete through the way society uses coins.
Fast forward a few decades, and now the mint is penniless....
I just got a brand new 2022 half dollar at a US casino cashier. I have no idea why they bothered getting rolls of those unless quarters weren't as readily available. Casinos already try not to use dimes, $1 coins, $2 bills, $10 bills, and $50 bills.
A lot of times they will use half dollars vs 50 cent chips in blackjack.
Wait wait wait
“Loonie” isn’t the official name? Oh my god it was just nickname this whole time
It’s a nickname, but the Mint holds the copyright to “loonie” as well.
It became a nickname the very second they released it!
For the longest time I had the first loonie I every received in change. Long spent now I'm sure.
Well the toonie would probably be called the Bear Behind
It still makes me mad that Canadians in general thought "toonie" was a better slang than "doubloon"
I always thought of it as "two-nie"
Phonetically the same, but due whatever reason "toonie" was adopted. Really "twonie" makes more sense, since, y'know, it's two dollars, but what are ya gonna do?
I get the "loon" and "toon", so there's that. It's neat to learn slang for other cultures/countries.
And if they replace the $5 bill with a coin as well, they could call it a foonie.
Call it a quinter.
It'll be a "fiver" I'm guessing.
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Thanks!
I have learned that downvotes don't hurt too much. It's like water off a duck's loon's back!
Yes, this is why it's funny! Loonie, Twonie. Makes sense.
Or how about the Bear Back, best used in conversation.
"Do I owe you a Bear Back?" "That's ok, I'm good right now"
I’d heard the suggestion of “doobie” because “double loonie.”
Really, though, I think it’s just because she was a fan of BC Bud long before it was legalized.
Rolls off the tongue better.
Coulda been a doubloonie.
You seriously think "doubloon" makes for a better moniker than "toonie"?
Yes, and I have since 1995 when everybody was taking about what we going to call the new $2 coin. Ultimately both words are the same concept, "double loonie" vs "two loonies," y'know? I still think toonie sounds dumb, but I still use the word because I try not to be an enormous tool
Fair enough.
I like the longer version - the Queen with the bear behind. Or soon to be King
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I was sitting here wondering if OP left "million" off after the $43.50. Nope they really wanted to save the cost of a nice meal and risk the countries monetary supply.
At the time, the would have been the cost to take the whole family to dinner (about $100 vs about $2.50 in today's money; it was the 1980's), but still, you'd think it would be a worthwhile investment to secure your nation's currency.
But the 80s were only like 15 years ago... Wait.... Fuuuuck.
Yesterday a teen told me "Harry Potter is an old people thing, i wasn't even born" and i felt so fucking old
Welcome to every time your parents or someone from their generation tried to engage you in their pop culture.
As I’ve gotten older, this Simpsons episode hits closer to home
There another newish episode where Homer and Marge tell Bart and Lisa about Y2K.
That one hurt my brain cuz I was watching the Simpsons through Y2K.
I like how the new bands in that clip are now like two generations behind. The bands Homer is into would be like my generations parents being into Glenn Miller or something
Lol somewhere around 2007 a young coworker told me she didn't remember the first gulf war. That was the first of many times I felt like I was getting old.
The most recent is when the "your birthdate must be before this date" sign for alcohol went beyond September 11, 2001, which just happened last month.
The pains that are withheld for me,
I realise, and I can seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...
I was born 15 years after WWll ended. Chew on that for a while!
Seriously, if an armored truck delivery only cost $43.50 CAD, then that's how I'd have everything delivered. I'd send random stuff to friends just for fun.
a succulent chinese meal?
Will it be accompanied by well-learned Jiu-Jitsu and the nonconsensual handling of my penis?
*judo
Think of it as "democracy manifest".
That's the thing that's confusing me about this... it was only $43 more for an ARMORED TRUCK vs a "discount courier" ????
Wtf I assumed it was millions as well lol
this is totally left field but I recently found out Australia has their own $1 coin that looks exactly like a Loonie but with kangaroos. My disappointment that they don't call it a Roonie is immeasurable.
It's called the Dollarydoo.
I learned from Bluey its actually a dollarbuck
Australian here. We call it a dollarydoo
Are you telling me Bandit lied? That such a fine example of being a father has been pulling the wool over my eyes???
a male kangaroo is called a Buck
Did people start calling it that because of a Simpsons Joke? Or are you pulling our legs?
Yes we did.
It should be the Dollaryroo.
I have one and I can tell you it's slightly smaller in diameter and slightly thicker than a loonie. But it's still very similar, I got it from being handed change somewhere and didn't realize until way later, I guess the cashier didn't either!
(The color is also quite different, but I'm not sure if that's just because mine is dirty.)
The American Sacagawea one dollar coin is very similar too, including the golden color.
I once decided that I would use $1 coins exclusively just to see if I could get them circulated, but when I went to the bank, they had to scrounge around to even find 5 of them. (The toothfairy gave out dollar coins in my house).
I think the current strategy in America is to continue to promote cashless. The laundromats in my area all converted to some sort of cashless system. Even if you bring cash they have you convert to a card. If you have a credit card or tap you can skip this step.
that’s so cool
They could put a boat on it and call it a Schoonie
Or put a calendar on it and call it a Joonie
Or put my buttocks on it and call it a Moonie.
Put a picture of David Hasselhoff and call it a Swoonie...
You say Canadian Mint like they all decided together when in reality it was probably some dumbass middle manager who would have been fired but his female assistant had the brilliant idea of using the Loonie designs that they already had and he presented it to the execs as his own idea and blamed her for everything because fuck her she kept refusing his advances for 6 months and now he's the Director of Mint Operations.
That sounds suspiciously specific.... ;)
He was the female assistant that's why
he's the mint.
Are guy the middle manager?
No
"Bit of reverse psychology there, Fred. They'll never think to look there!"
When the Hope Diamond was being transported from South Africa to England, the authorities published a detailed plan of how they were going to ensure it's security. The diamond would be kept in a locked strong-box, then carried on a combination of sea and rail, accompanied at all times by two armed guards.
Then they put the diamond in the post and mailed it.
And "hoped" for the best.
"Sorry we missed you. We left the package in your safe place behind the bins."
Didn’t they also still actually send a decoy package in a sting box on sea and rail, with armed guards though?
Yep. Plain ol' regular snail mail gets used for a lot of valuable shipments.
I bet those original $1 coins are worth a lot more than $1 now
Only if you could get them out of the country. I'm sure the government would seize them if they knew you had them
"Oh I must have gotten those as change or something"
No worries we'll replace them with these correct $1 coins for you, wouldn't want anyone to think you were doing something nefarious with these
'The new dollar coin was to be made so it matched the dimensions and weight of the American Susan B. Anthony dollar coin so it would be compatible with American manufactured vending machines being used in Canada.'
Of course, no-one would think to use those new Canadian dollar coins in vending machines on the US side of the border. /s
The Susan B Anthony Dollar coin, that was famously phased out of existence because both people and vending machines had problems differentiating it from a quarter?
If it had the same dimensions and weight as a US dollar coin, I figured that would be the problem in US vending machines. Not a quarter.
I get what you're saying...its also a problem to be close to the size/weight of any US coin. But even in the US, the Susan B. Anthony itself was a problem; some vending machines would register it as a quarter, and it became a problem in in-person transactions both ways, with some people not even realizing the Anthony was a dollar coin (similar to the problems some people have spending $2 bills), and other people mistakenly giving it out instead of quarters. So Canada was trying to match the design (bad on its own) of a poorly made design (compounding the problem). There's a reason they only ever bothered minting the Susan B. Anthony for 4 years, and eventually replaced it with the Sacagawea dollar.
The few cents you'd save wouldn't really be worth the effort of hoarding a bunch of Canadian dollars in the US for this one purpose.
Why wouldn’t it be? You can just go to your bank and get Canadian dollars.
Is a trip to the bank, and constantly carrying some Canadian cash on you really worth it, to save a few cents in a vending machine now and then?
It's like the people who drive way out of their way to save a couple cents on gas. They'd be better off not doing it.
It might be worth it even if you are a Canadian coming to the US for a week's holiday. You may not save thousands but some money.
Then multiply it by the number of Canadians. Americans who travel to Canada may also know the scam and take advantage.
When I lived in London in the 1990s, there was a very cheap European coin, which was very similar to a one pound coin. It was used a lot in the ticket machines on the London Underground. And that did cost LU a lot of money.
> When I lived in London in the 1990s, there was a very cheap European coin, which was very similar to a one pound coin. It was used a lot in the ticket machines on the London Underground. And that did cost LU a lot of money.
Sure, if it's very cheap, I can believe it's worth doing. Especially since people may often make ten Underground trips a week.
Right now, the CAD is 0.73 USD which is unusually low--it may be worth it now (although who uses cash anymore?). But ten years ago they were on par. For a bit CAD was actually worth 1.01 USD! So, the particular year matters quite a bit. A lot of the time, it wouldn't have been worth doing.
Is it that difficult to cast a new die from a new coin anyway? Always thought the main deterrent against counterfeiting coins was the cost of the metals, not the ability to cast a good copy
I think the issue wasn't that it was a good copy but rather that it was literally indistinguishable from real currency.
Coin dies aren't cast. And this probably wasn't the die anyway but what they call a punch. It's kind of the master(it looks like a coin, as in it is a positive of the coin design) that is then used to make the dies(which is a negative of the coin image) whick strike the blank to make the coin. Punches last a really long time in minting(decades), but the dies are used up fairly quickly, as in you need many for one production run.
Canadian coins nowadays are actually nearly all steel and are plated in specific ways to get the look and electronic signature correct.
We also rarely talk about the Big Maple Leaf, an annoying piece of fiddling small change consisting of a coin 20 inches diameter containing 100Kg of 5 nines pure gold. Six of these were minted & the current owners are Queen Elizabeth II; Oro Direct, a Spanish gold trading company; Boris Fuchsmann and two anonymous individuals in Dubai.
A coin owned by Boris Fuchsmann, which had been on loan for public display in the Münzkabinett of Berlin's Bode Museum since 2010, was stolen on March 27, 2017. It has not been recovered, and is believed to have been melted down.
The theft was performed by someone who took the simple expediency of visiting during the day & unlocking a nearby window then coming back at night with a wheelbarrow.
>the current owners are Queen Elizabeth II
Who's gonna tell him?
I think he knows, though I would not put it past him to stub his toe on that weird doorstop & wonder where mumsey got it from.
I wonder what the inheritance tax on something like that is & does it count as a fungible asset.
You can take it with you!
These coins were 100kg, not 1000.
A real criminal would have copied the die and then put it back.
Canada are you ok?
Bet they shipped with fucken Purolator
You just know the missing dies are going to show up on a future broadcast of Antiques Roadshow..
You should crosspost this to r/coins
The nerds over there (self included) love shit like this.
Then you guys might also like this story
https://www.thestar.com/news/2007/05/07/us_feared_poppy_quarter.html
It's the story of how the US DND issued an espionage warning about "anomalous" coins feared to be equipped with radio frequency capabilities used to spy on and track US defense contractors working in Canada..... It was just the new 25c coins lol but they were the first ever coloured coins produced for circulation
In our defense, those pesky Canadians are always after our Lucky Charms.
In our defense, those pesky Canadians are always after our Lucky Charms.
Why send it at all through a courier or armored truck. Does Canada not have police, military, anything? You're already paying them and why would you even trust an armored car when you have your own people with armored military vehicles.
I had a professor in college who told us that when he worked for a bank in the 1980s, the bank needed more physical cash before a holiday. His boss handed him a loaded handgun and told him to drive to the New Orleans branch of the Federal Reserve, pick up the bank's order, and drive back nonstop.
The US government regularly contracts with private truckers to haul very special loads and tells them to not stop except for diesel, pee in a bottle, and drive right past all weigh stations and most law enforcement officers: the feds will order state level law enforcement to stop the pursuit (if they do stop, the driver has a get out jail free card). Pretty much all rest requirements are waived. It's also a violation of federal law for the trucker to even open the trailer, which might be empty or carrying a dummy load. Canada can and likely does the same.
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As strange as it might seem, it's relatively common to ship valuable items in a generic box through a regular carrier/courier.
The logic is that just another brown box isn't going to arouse any suspicion or tip off that it's valuable, but an armored truck showing up sure sends a strong message that something worth stealing is being transported.
Wow, I had to read a bunch of comments here to establish that the title wasn't gibberish.
Had history been different we’d be using a canoey instead of a loonie
You're sayong an armored car costs $43.50? I don't believe that
In 1986 it might have.
The Cullinan Diamond is the largest gem-quality rough diamond ever found, weighing 3,106.75 carats, discovered at the Premier No.2 mine in Cullinan, South Africa,
“Due to its immense value, detectives were assigned to a steamboat that was rumoured to be carrying the stone, and a parcel was ceremoniously locked in the captain's safe and guarded on the entire journey. It was a diversionary tactic – the stone on that ship was fake, meant to attract those who would be interested in stealing it. Cullinan was sent to the United Kingdom in a plain box via registered post”
I had heard it was deliberate. The plan was to use the Loon design all along, but there was public outcry to continue the Voyageur design from the old nickel and silver dollar back to 1935.
"Losing" the dies allows them to present it in a face-saving way. They really wanted to use the other design, honest for reals, but it got lost in shipment. Anyway...
Ah yes, I was in that one thread too
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Security through obscurity is hardly security at all.
The “moose knuckle” counterfeit toonie is another interesting tale!
The courier was ambushed, shot in the face and buried in a shallow grave in goodsprings, manitoba.
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$43.50 isn't much
*$43.50
That's the reason why the 1987 Canadian Mint set and proof set have the regular dollar, and not the Loonie.
Which also makes me wonder why this. A loon is a duck. A dollar is a buck. They could have had the best thing ever in calling it the "duck buck." But nope, not in Canada.
Sometimes cost cutting will cost you dearly.
...well, why didn't they make a Heritage Minute out of THIS? :-o
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So instead of the Loonie, we almost had the Canoey.
So presumably the thieves were hoping that the mint would just make a whole new set that were identical in every way, allowing them to mint their own coins, rather than just designing a new one?
The real reason is that the Canadian Mint didn't want to haul $43.50 in loonies from the bank to pay for the shipping.
Good ol’ Canadian incompetency and not giving a fuck
/r/ottawa would definitely enjoy this!
Now with new Charles 3 face on coins, still a loonie
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43.5 what? Dollars? Pears? Apples? Peaches? Cheese slices? WHAT THE FUCK?
>TIL that in an effort to save $43.5,
Should probably wipe your glasses mate
Why don't you clean yours? I see the dollar sign, but i don't get it.
You don't get that $43.5 means 43.5 dollars?
True.
What'd you think it meant?
43.5 billion.
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Hell if i know, you jerkwad?
You jerkwad douchewaffle.
wordnerdette t1_isx2f39 wrote
Wow, TIL. I remember the transition to loonies, and kept a dollar bill in my dictionary (which, um, I assume is still there). I wonder what we would have called the canoe design coins - canooeys? Paddlers? And then what would we call toonies?