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Pillar of the Community
United States
1227 Posts |
Okay, so, it's about the time of year that my snowbirds start flying in, and the other day I had a couple fresh off the plane from Alberta who still had mostly-Canadian change. The wife in the duo was trying to find American money to pay for their purchases, and finally I said "you know what, the exchange rate is still pretty close to even, right? I'm a collector, if you want to spend Canadian coins I'll just buy them out of my drawer and I can give you American change."
The wife briefly declined, then said "Wait, here's one I bet you haven't seen" and dropped a Canadian quarter into my hand. The obverse was showing, so I commented on the portrait (I had not, in fact, seen the "elderly" Elizabeth portrait on a quarter yet), and only after they left did I see the reverse, and that's when things got weird.
This is a 2012 War of 1812 commemorative quarter, featuring someone who appears to be named Brock on the reverse. So far, so good--half the Canadian coins I get in change are commemorative something-or-others, whether it's the 1967 cent or the Year of the Volunteer nickel or the Olympic quarter. What sets this one apart is that while Elizabeth's portrait looks totally normal (if somewhat more clean-cut than I'm used to seeing), Brock's bust is deeply frosted, and the tiny portion of field that's open to the left of the reverse looks vaguely mirrorlike. Elizabeth's bust is not frosted, but her whole side of the coin is mirrorish--not something I usually see on Canadian quarters, even new ones.
So: Canadian coins are not really my "thing," and I know very little about them. What I do know is that Canadians do some totally crazy things with their coinage (dinosaur glow-in-the-dark toonies, anyone?), and so I can't say what this is or isn't based strictly on appearance. (I also don't know where the mintmark is, if there is one; if someone would like to enlighten me I'd be happy to check it.)
Did I get hold of a proof, or is the frosted bust just a fun little thing they added for this year because it's a commemorative? HELP!!
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
1227 Posts |
Thanks, SPP! It's hard to see the frost on that link (looks like maybe those are the design drawings, not photographs of the finished coin?), but that almost-3D image on the one with the non-coloured link is consistent with what I have. artdio, I'm horrible at taking my own pictures (bad light sources, versatile but cheap camera, newbie) so I popped some search terms from SPP's link into Google, and found this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephe.../8122482538/ Mine has a couple more dings on it and the frost isn't quite that deep, but that's the coin, much more picture-perfect than I could get it. |
Posted 12/04/2012 07:07 am
