How Far Back Can We Go? Second Edition! Ended At 1492 Waiting On 1491

Commemorative 1939 Canadian Dollar (Visit of King George VI)

Here is a lesser-known souvenir of that very same visit:

These medallions were struck at the Royal Canadian Mint and sold for 10 cents each at post offices nationwide. They are the exact size of the Canadian large cent, almost 20 years out of use in 1939, but are a good deal thicker. They were also struck in silver and gold, but those are less ubiquitous. Despite being government-made and issued, these are usually excluded from Canadian coin catalogs.

An interesting fact about the design: George VI's cheek is in the center of the coin, and is also the highest-raised surface. This means these medallions can spin like a top (although not very well).

During this visit (you can see the path they took across Canada), George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother stopped at Rideau Hall (where our Governor-General lives) in Ottawa and planted a maple tree, which is still there. Most important foreign visitors to Canada are encouraged to do this and I got to see the whole stand of sugar maples when I visited, each with a little sign saying who planted it.

Other design element facts... the Dominion arms are up there, which you should recognize from the nice Canadian half dollars we keep posting, there's our motto A MARI USQUE AD MARE (From Sea to Sea... although they missed a Sea, because we have got large swathes of the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans) and the phrase REGEM ET REGINAM CANADA SALVTAT (Canada salutes her King and Queen). Canada had no choice but to participate in World War I, but the Depression caused Britain's many Dominions and colonies to become unmanageable and they were slowly being cut loose. As a result, in 1939, it was completely our choice to declare war with Britain or not. America demonstrated its sovereignty by waiting a few years to join in the fun, and Canada waited an incredible seven days before joining Britain in Europe, just to show the U.K. that we could. I'm not sure if they even noticed.

Oh, please let's do, unless jbuck wants us to start different threads, but I for one think this is a perfect place to put it all together, only a week or so until Hitler comes to power. The History of coins is the history of the world in the palm of your hand.

I never meant to imply that Hitler would have had any luck with an armed invasion of North America.
As for Europe: Spain was in turmoil after the Civil war. and the fascist regime of Franco would have made a nice 'out post' of empire for the 3rd Reich.
France: North fell and South capitulated.
Belgium, Holland, Denmark: all taken in days/weeks and held for years.
Poland, Czechoslovakia and the rest of Central Europe, gobbled up by the German advance or taken over by the Russians and Italians.

Swiss: the only real hold out, but it is said that with-out the Swiss banks the 3rd Reich would have had a much harder time. Not to mention that most of Switzerland is high altitude and jagged peaks. What use is a Tiger tank when one man can topple a single boulder, crush the tank and block the road for years?

He was on good footing with the Italians and Swiss. So if he had left that feisty little island alone then maybe Neville Chamberlain's "Peace in Our Time" speech would have held off the Brit's from seeking allies and preparing for invasion.

In a few days we will see a change in the face of the British coins, some think it was not just to avoid the royal shame of a twice divorced socialite being called QUEEN! Some think that the family ties put forth by Queen Victoria to almost every royal family in Europe were clouding the future Kings ideas of what the next war should be, Cousin Albert in Bavaria and "our poor cousins in Russia." Families fight but in most cases hundreds of thousands of people don't have to die. In a way I'm glad we have passed over the war years without mentioning Concentration camps and the Holocaust (No FLAMING political hate/hurt fights here, just History!). In 1939 Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Sobibor were pins on a map and no one could think anything more of them. Hitler was THE world leader, he took his beaten almost dead nation from the depths of desolation to being a world power in a few short years. He was as powerful a speaker as any politician today, even more than some to win the US Presidency. He was strong and beloved and why not like him? ? ? from 1933 - 1939 he was the golden boy.

If he had known about "hearts and minds" and turned the ethnic cleansing to slave labor camps.. who knows what would have been... if... If... IF!

The ancient roman specialists will remind you that when a general took over a region or town the troops that had not been crushed would fight for you or die. The Epic and beautiful movie 'The Big Red One' by Samuel Fuller, shows how the French soldiers held the beaches in North Africa. According to the movie the French were ready to swap sides, according to the commentary they were ready to die to hold their post, for the most part.
- side note on 'The Big Red One' Sam Fuller was the one to tell the general that exit E-1 was open, he was actually part of the D-Day landings and the bangalor torpedo crew that turned the tied. In reality he did not have to steal a cigar from a dead dog-face but was in fact given a cigar by the general who said "let's get off this beach and DIE inland!"

- side side note, Lee Marvin played the Sargent in 'The Big Red One' because John Wayne was too recognizable, and Sam wanted a no-body/every-body type, the quintisential dog-face. If you liked the Sci-Fi movie 'Enemy mine' please check out 'Hell in the Pacific' Lee Marvin plays a marine abandoned on a small island with a single Japanese soldier.

- side side side note, James Arness of Gunsmoke fame was used as a human ladder to help other troops over the sea-wall on the D-Day invasions, no surprise since he was 6 foot 6 inches, give or take. "The Duke" turned down the roll of Matt Dillon saying James would be better at it.

EDIT: what are the First two Reich's?

Well...I'll just conclude to say the US, England, and particularly Stalin--proved Hitler wrong rather quickly. Unlike the Romans, the core of Nazi ideology did not permit working alliances with "inferior races", ie anybody but the 'true Germans'. Their ideological hubris was a grave weakness to Hitler's prospects for conquest. So the Nazi practice of invasion, erecting a puppet Nazi government, even issuing substandard money--was always in contempt of local identity, and did not forge any semblance of real trust or cultural alliance. Fear and brute force might occupy, but it cannot create a peace.


Oh--OK, I'm done--I don't think I can put any more coin chatter into this.

1939 BELGIUM 5 francs; nickel; 25mm :



This coin has both reeding and lettering on the edge.
A rare variety exists that has the 'BELGIE-BELGIQUE' reversed.

perhaps a little controversial, but it's only in the spirit of numismatics



the very last year of the Nazi silvers. pretty handsome design, and pretty common on ebay, where I didn't get this from, a first at that too.

OK last walker for a while, 1938 d