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 Replies: 26 / Views: 8,933 |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
849 Posts |
Banks used to stock 50 cent pieces but since about 2003 you could only get them from year sets or mint rolls, which would mean from the Royal Canadian Mint or a coin dealer. I was a teenager in Calgary in the mid to late sixties and I recall seeing them from time to time but not in large quantities. Our family had a retail store in the 1990s and sometimes I would get a roll of fifty cent pieces from the bank and put them in the cash register and give them as change in the place of quarters. Many people would think they did not get enough change back until they looked closer. My bank branch will have some on hand some days when I go in so I will buy them (always nickel and usually between 1968 and 2000). I will then spend them which intrigues some people and annoys others when they have to deal with the transaction. Edited by punman
03/21/2015 10:41 pm
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
4227 Posts |
I worked in banks in the late '80s and early '90s and never saw a single 50 cent piece as a teller (my own cash) or as the cashier (cash for the entire branch). Both branches were high volume for both commercial and regular customers. The odd teller would have someone deposit one or two, but I can count the number of times that happened on one hand. I just didn't see them anywhere around NS.
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Pillar of the Community
 Canada
617 Posts |
Circulated in the greater Vancouver area until about '74-75.
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Moderator
 Australia
16837 Posts |
I lived in Vancouver for six months in 1983; I never was given one in change, but sometimes when I asked the checkout people if they had any strange coins, they'd fish out a 50 cents and give me one. I had acquired a grand total of two of them this way over the six month period, dated 1976 and 1980.
My parents lived in London, Ontario for two years from 1970 to 1972. The only two "odd coins" which they'd presumably been given in change and kept as souvenirs were a 1971 BC nickel dollar and a 1950 silver 50 cents. I judge from this and from talking to them that neither nickel dollars nor 50 cent coins of any kind were considered "normal" coinage.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
2366 Posts |
I remember trading for a couple from the bank teller around 1980 in SW Ont. Definitely weren't common in circulation though.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
5589 Posts |
The 50 cent stopped regular circulation about the same time that loonies, and then toonies, came into being. There weren't enough slots in the cash register drawers for all the denominations and the half got booted. In the States, they stopped when they stopped being .900 silver, but the early Kennedy ones were popular for a while and then no-silver killed them.
A benefit on the 50 cents in Canada is that most parking meters think that they are (and resiter as)loonies, so you get 2X face for them downtown.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
1505 Posts |
I can remember getting them from time to time in the mid-1980's.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
937 Posts |
We used to see them occasionally as late as the early 70's, usually the nickel ones. Often enough that I knew what they were as a kid. By the later 70's and my teenage years they had pretty well dried up, though.
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Valued Member
Canada
158 Posts |
I remember getting the odd one in change in the early eighties. Once the loonie came in 87, that was pretty much it. I still use them as tips (plus voyageur dollars) and people have some interesting reactions to them.
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Pillar of the Community
 Canada
1118 Posts |
Thank you everyone, this gives me a vague idea of when they "dried up". I seem to be right in thinking Atlantic Canada didn't see them as long as our western cousins.
The Expo story was pretty neat!
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New Member
Canada
15 Posts |
Just asked my dad, who grew up in western Newfoundland in the 50s and 60s. He remembers them being fairly common until the late 60s or so.
Interesting topic.
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Replies: 26 / Views: 8,933 |
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Posted 03/21/2015 10:41 pm
