Coins of Canada - Urban Legends

Urban Legends

Several urban legends and other false information have circulated regarding Canadian coinage.

• The centre can pop out of a toonie. This is in fact true, but only for coins struck in 1996. Many toonies in the first shipment of the coins were defective, and could separate if struck hard or frozen, as the centre piece would shrink more than the outside. This problem was quickly corrected, and the initial wave of "toonie popping" blew over a few months after the coin's introduction.
• The 50¢ piece is no longer minted and/or has been withdrawn from circulation. The 50¢ coin circulates so little that many people have never personally seen or handled one. Shop proprietors have been known to refuse to accept them as payment because they do not recognize them as Canadian currency. However, the RCM continues to produce the 50¢ coin annually for coin collections such as the Uncirculated, Specimen, and Proof Sets. Although the RCM does produce the coin in small numbers (in 2005, the mintage for the coins was 200,000, and the coins were not produced for circulation in 2003 and 2004); most of them are purchased by coin collectors. The remainder go to banks, though most do not give them out unless the customer specifically requests so. Given enough notice, any bank should be able to obtain them in a significant quantity for their customers. The 50¢ coin is also commonly handed out as regular change at some Canada Post locations. An attempt at widening the circulation of the 50-cent piece was made in 2002 with the release of a specially designed coin marking the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, which was circulated through the Laura Secord store chain in Canada.
• The crown is wrong in the Queen's portrait. When the new coin portrait was first issued in 1990 (see above), a legend surfaced that the artist had simply added the image of a crown to a portrait of the Queen, and that she was never meant to be seen wearing that headgear. This is patently false; she posed personally for the portrait wearing one of her usual crowns.