Steel Loonie And Toonie Coming

Why don't they just make coins out of plastic already? Seems like that's where we're headed!

Stop trying to cheer us up SilverBug.

More importantly has anyone seen the new test coins for sale any where. :-)

Alex Reeves did confirm the new coins are about to go into production and should be in circulation in "early spring" -- likely late March or April.

The #1 question in my mind is will they start production with nickel and 1 week or 1 month later switch to steel, leaving us collectors to sort that out and scramble for examples of each?

The only way to distinguish new from old will be with accurate scales since the old and new are all magnetic. Nickel quarters weighed 5.05g versus steel core 25¢ = 4.40g, a reduction of 13%. Nickel 50¢ vs steel 50¢ dropped 15% by weight.

So we can extrapolate: 'old' loonies weigh 7.00g so the 'new' ones should be around 6.00g. Old toonies weigh 7.3g so 'new toonies' s/b around 6.3g...easy enough to spot!

It's gotta make you worry when a few cents worth of nickle in the intrinsic value of a $2 coin has to be downgraded to a junk steel coin.
I can remember when they took silver coins out of circulation to save a few quid.
No one benefited out of it and some smart arse got a great bonus/retirement package.
A government is not like a business , the more money it can get the more it will spend on inane agendas and all the "Shareholders" can do is vote every few years for another just as useless government.
A thousand years ago or more they made coins for commerce and today they are recognisable coins .
Imagine in another thousand years............... All they will find is rust and a trace of corrosion.
We already have a fiat dollar in the US now they want to have a fiat coinage in Canada.
By Crickey I hope this never happens I Aus

What I don't get is that Canada is so rich in nickel. Why do we have to resort to anything else? Sudbury/Timmins isn't very far from Ottawa.
Saving money? This is a disaster, almost as bad as Afghanistan. (And our weapons are being "stolen", whatever. Reappropriated is more like it.)

To answer the question Dan, it's more about how the two governments are structured. The founding fathers of the US basically set up a system designed on purpose to make it hard to enact changes, seriously. The default action is designed to be inaction (with good cause, I mean government screws things up so keep it small and make sure everyone is on the same page before laws are passsed etc...).

Anyhow, in Canada, an elected party with a majority in Parliament ensures the PM is a de facto dictator for the run of his or her term. They dictate which bills are passed, what documents see the light of day and if a Crown Corporation like the RCM says "we can make cheap coins, can I haz rayz now" then the party in power can make it happen without so much as a grunt. Conversely, if the PM hated the steel coins, he could tell the Minister of Finance "this is suckage, I want aluminum coins so people in BC vote for me" then that is what would happen.

In reality, they did a study, the study went to the Board of Directors of the RCM and was passed. The final decision maker is really the Minister who works for the Prime Minister, but he lets them go nuts as long as they keep the cash flowing back to the government, their only shareholder.

Want to know what I'm really surprised about? That we don't have special edition bank notes, maybe a fuzzy bunny special edition in 100 dollar denominations so people squirrel them away forever.

It would be ironic if Canada bought the steel from their neighbor across Lake Eire, my home state of Ohio and one of the top three steel-producing states in the USA. I believe that, if the US bill ever passes, the steel for our coins would come from this state (at least that is the plan).