CANADA'S LOON DOLLAR TURNS THIRTY

Thirty years ago today the loonie made its first clanking appearance in cash registers, pockets and purses across Canada.

In 1987, many people were concerned about the size and weight of the new gold-coloured $1 coin, others unhappy about giving up the comfort of their familiar dollar bills.

But three decades later sentiment about the quintessential Canadian coin has shifted. The loonie is now synonymous with the Canadian dollar, perhaps even with the country.

The paper bill surrendered to the coin "mostly for cost-savings purposes," says Royal Canadian Mint public affairs director Christine Aquino. "The government predicted they would save about $175 million over a span of 25 years because coins last a lot longer than banknotes."

In a way, it was all a mistake. The common loon was never intended to be on the coin. The design was supposed to be two men in a canoe, the voyageur design from the previous silver dollar coin.

But the dies for the coin disappeared en route from the Ottawa mint to the Winnipeg facility where it was to go into mass production. An effort to save money on shipping has been blamed.

The mint had only one year to get the new coin into circulation. Aquino says it had no choice but to find a new design, "to prevent counterfeiting from happening the mint went back into its art bank and found a designable loon that was actually submitted in 1978 by Robert-Ralph Carmichael."

"The loonie has sort of taken on a life of its own somewhere along the line," says Hamilton coin collector Stephen Adams. "Someone put one in the ice and it became the lucky loonie and really from there I think it got into the popular culture."

Adams is referring to the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, where a loonie was hidden at centre ice. Canada's men's and women's hockey teams took home gold at those games, and the lucky loonie got its own commemorative coin.

To read the complete article, see:
From suspicion to pride: Canada's beloved loonie turns 30 (http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/loonie-canada-dollar-30-years-1.4184788)

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