1985 20 Cents - Turns Out It Exists!

Yeah I'm not sure about the 1988 20c piece - if there are mintage figures I can only assume they were produced but they probably suffered the same fate as the 1983 and 1984 20c pieces. Certainly I haven't found one in change either.

Like McDonald's, Rennicks relied/relies on the RAM's, alleged, annual production figures of all denominations of coins that were minted.
However, the value of eg the 1983 20c indicated in their publications is far greater then, say, the 1981 20c which has a similar mintage. The RAM's annual final mintage figures were always unreliable - have a look at what the RAM's site states that the 1992 $1 minted was a MOR's ? Yep, very, very untidy !!
Another intertesting anomaly in question is the 1994 20c. I have serious doubts if there were ever 14.22 million minted. I remember getting a few in my change from a supermarket ( I was a very dedicated soul back then, so of course, I went back and got as many as I could ) when they were first released, but getting any more soon after was short lived. These 1994 20c weren't the usual high CH UNC quality you'd rightfully expect to get from a newly released coin - they were just ok, although many of them had slight obverse markings I've found on a few too many 1993 20c from mint sets. Also some of the 1994 20c looked like the substandard quality 1985 50c when they were released.as though the Copper/Zinc/Tin mix used to mint the coins somehow had cement mixed in with it by mistake. Strange light gray colours here and there on the coins with streaky feint lines, again, a bit like most of the pock marked poor quality issued 1985 50c.

cheers

Yeah,i think many mintage figures under/over lap as far as the dates go.Not something I care about,life goes on,but a family Friend was a Antique/Stamp/Coin dealer back in the 1950/70's and he was passionate about the Mints 'guestimate' figures,particulary the Sydney Mint post WW1 where alleged corruption and Fraud was rampant.

Another hobby horse of his in his later years was the 1919 Double Dot Penny,he had Friends that were Teenagers in 1919 and serious collectors and like himself had never seen a 1919 DD until the early 1960's,where the heck did they come from in numbers 30+ Years after the Sydney Mint closed?

Makes one wonder what happened in 1985. Production of various coins were literally stopped. Maybe RAM struggled with the production with the dollar coin introduced in 1984? Or perhaps when the Canadian Mint and Llantrisant probably had a bit of an overproduction in 1981, hence not requiring too much coins in 1985?

I guess metal price has to do something with production. I believe copper and nickel prices started to climb up early 1980s. Reminds me of the US copper cent composition change in 1982. Perhaps RAM needed to find ways to cost cut against the rise of metal prices.

I also believe there is some kind of difference in the planchets. 1981 20 cents is a good example - Canadian Mint and RAM coins wear and tone quite differently. Would be interesting to do a XRF test to do comparison test.

Getting a little off topic but this earlier thread might be of interest.
[urlhttp://goccf.com/t/19862][/url]

Yeah zinc and tin were mentioned above - I thought the cupronickel planchets were nothing but copper and nickel but I guess I wouldn't be surprised if the composition has changed at times.




I don't remember that but it seems plausible - nothing to stop another company ordering similar blank planchets.
I haven't heard of fake dollar coins though, and the fake two dollar coins seem to be dated early 2000s from memory.