The loonie (french: huard), formally the Canadian one-dollar coin, is a gold-coloured Canadian coin that was introduced in 1987 and is produced by the

Royal Canadian Mint }) is the mint of Canada and a Crown corporation, operating under the ''Royal Canadian Mint Act''. The shares of the Mint are held in trust for the Crown in right of Canada. The Mint produces all of Canada's circulation coins, and manufactures ...

at its facility in

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...

. The most prevalent versions of the coin show a

common loon The common loon or great northern diver (''Gavia immer'') is a large member of the loon, or diver, family of birds. Breeding adults have a plumage that includes a broad black head and neck with a greenish, purplish, or bluish sheen, blackish o ...

, a bird found throughout Canada, on the

reverse Reverse or reversing may refer to: Arts and media * ''Reverse'' (Eldritch album), 2001 * ''Reverse'' (2009 film), a Polish comedy-drama film * ''Reverse'' (2019 film), an Iranian crime-drama film * ''Reverse'' (Morandi album), 2005 * ''Reverse'' ...

and

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. She was queen ...

, the nation's head of state at the time of the coin's issue, on the

obverse Obverse and its opposite, reverse, refer to the two flat faces of coins and some other two-sided objects, including paper money, flags, seals, medals, drawings, old master prints and other works of art, and printed fabrics. In this usage, ''o ...

. Various commemorative and specimen-set editions of the coin with special designs replacing the loon on the reverse have been minted over the years. The coin's outline is an 11-sided

Reuleaux polygon In geometry, a Reuleaux polygon is a curve of constant width made up of circular arcs of constant radius. These shapes are named after their prototypical example, the Reuleaux triangle, which in turn, is named after 19th-century German engineer ...

. Its diameter of 26.5 mm and its 11-sidedness matched that of the already-circulating

Susan B. Anthony dollar The Susan B. Anthony dollar is a United States dollar coin minted from 1979 to 1981 when production was suspended due to poor public acceptance, and then again in 1999. Intended as a replacement for the larger Eisenhower dollar, the new smalle ...

in the United States, and its thickness of 1.95 mm was a close match to the latter's 2.0 mm. Its gold colour differed from the silver-coloured Anthony dollar; however, the succeeding

Sacagawea Sacagawea ( or ; also spelled Sakakawea or Sacajawea; May – December 20, 1812 or April 9, 1884)Sacagawea
...

and Presidential dollars matched the loonie's overall hue. Other coins using a non-circular

curve of constant width In geometry, a curve of constant width is a simple closed curve in the plane whose width (the distance between parallel supporting lines) is the same in all directions. The shape bounded by a curve of constant width is a body of constant width or ...

include the 7-sided

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

twenty pence and fifty pence coins (the latter of which has similar size and value to the loonie, but is silver in colour). After its introduction, the coin became a

metonym Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept. Etymology The words ''metonymy'' and ''metonym'' come from grc, μετωνυμία, 'a change of name' ...

for the

Canadian dollar The Canadian dollar ( symbol: $; code: CAD; french: dollar canadien) is the currency of Canada. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, there is no standard disambiguating form, but the abbreviation Can$ is often suggested by notable style ...

: media often discuss the rate at which the ''loonie'' is trading against other currencies. The nickname ''loonie'' became so widely recognized that in 2006, the

secured the rights to it. When the Canadian two-dollar coin was introduced in 1996, it was in turn nicknamed the "

toonie The toonie (also spelled twonie or twoonie), formally the Canadian two-dollar coin (, nicknamed or ), was introduced on February 19, 1996, by Minister of Public Works Diane Marleau. , it possesses the highest monetary value of any circulating ...

" (a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words

Background

Canada first minted a silver dollar coin in 1935 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of

George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until Death and state funeral of George V, his death in 1936. Born duri ...

's reign as

king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

. The

voyageur dollar The voyageur dollar is a coin of Canada that was struck for circulation from 1935 through 1986. Until 1968, the coin was composed of 80% silver. A smaller, nickel version for general circulation was struck from 1968 through 1986. In 1987, the coi ...

, so named because it featured an

Indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

person and a French

voyageur The voyageurs (; ) were 18th and 19th century French Canadians who engaged in the transporting of furs via canoe during the peak of the North American fur trade. The emblematic meaning of the term applies to places (New France, including the ' ...

paddling a

canoe A canoe is a lightweight narrow water vessel, typically pointed at both ends and open on top, propelled by one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel and using a single-bladed paddle. In British English, the term ...

on the reverse, was minted in silver until 1967, after which it was composed primarily of nickel. The coins did not see wide circulation, mainly due to their size and weight; the nickel version weighed and was in diameter, and was itself smaller than the silver version. By 1982, the

had begun work on a new composition for the dollar coin that it hoped would lead to increased circulation. At the same time, vending machine operators and transit systems were lobbying the

Government of Canada The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown ...

to replace the dollar banknotes with more widely circulating coins. A Commons committee recommended in 1985 that the dollar bill be eliminated despite a lack of evidence that Canadians would support the move. The government argued that it would save between $175 million and $250 million over 20 years by switching from bills that had a lifespan of less than a year to coins that would last two decades.

Introduction

The government announced on March 25, 1986, that the new dollar coin would be launched the following year as a replacement for the dollar bill, which would be phased out. It was expected to cost $31.8 million to produce the first 300 million coins, but through

seigniorage Seigniorage , also spelled seignorage or seigneurage (from the Old French ''seigneuriage'', "right of the lord (''seigneur'') to mint money"), is the difference between the value of money and the cost to produce and distribute it. The term can be ...

(the difference between the cost of production and the coin's value), expected to make up to $40 million a year on the coins. From the proceeds, a total of $60 million over five years was dedicated toward funding the

1988 Winter Olympics The 1988 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XV Olympic Winter Games (french: XVes Jeux olympiques d'hiver) and commonly known as Calgary 1988 ( bla, Mohkínsstsisi 1988; sto, Wîchîspa Oyade 1988 or ; cr, Otôskwanihk 1998/; srs, Guts� ...

in Calgary. The failure of the

coin in the United States had been considered and it was believed Americans refused to support the coin due to its similarity to their

quarter A quarter is one-fourth, , 25% or 0.25. Quarter or quarters may refer to: Places * Quarter (urban subdivision), a section or area, usually of a town Placenames * Quarter, South Lanarkshire, a settlement in Scotland * Le Quartier, a settlement ...

coin and its lack of aesthetic appeal. In announcing the new Canadian dollar coin, the government stated it would be the same overall size as the Susan B. Anthony coin – slightly larger than a quarter – to allow for compatibility with American manufactured vending machines, but would be eleven-sided and gold-coloured. It was planned that the coin would continue using the ''voyageur'' theme of its predecessor, but the master dies that had been struck in Ottawa were lost in transit en route to the Mint's facility at Winnipeg. A Commons committee struck to investigate the loss discovered that the Mint had no documented procedures for transport of master dies and that it had shipped them via a local courier in a bid to save $43.50. It was also found to be the third time that the Mint had lost master dies within five years. An internal review by the Royal Canadian Mint argued that while a policy existed to ship the obverse and reverse dies separately, the new coin dies were packaged separately but were part of the same shipment. The Mint also disagreed with the

Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; french: Gendarmerie royale du Canada; french: GRC, label=none), commonly known in English as the Mounties (and colloquially in French as ) is the federal police, federal and national police service of ...

's contention that the dies were simply lost in transit, believing instead that they were stolen. The dies were never recovered. Fearing the possibility of counterfeiting, the government approved a new design for the reverse, replacing the ''voyageur'' with a

Robert-Ralph Carmichael Robert-Ralph Carmichael (1937 – July 16, 2016) was a Canadian artist who designed the image of the common loon on the reverse side of the Canadian one-dollar coin. The coin takes its name, ''loonie'' (''huard'' in French), from the image of t ...

design of a

floating in water. The coin was immediately nicknamed the "loonie" across English Canada, and became known as a "''huard''", French for "loon", in Quebec. The loonie entered circulation on June 30, 1987, as 40 million coins were introduced into major cities across the country. Over 800 million loonies had been struck by the coin's 20th anniversary. After a 21-month period in which the loonie and $1 note were produced concurrently with each other, the Bank of Canada ceased production of the dollar banknote. The final dollar bills were printed on June 30, 1989. Initial support for the coin was mixed, but withdrawing the banknote forced acceptance of the coin. The loonie has subsequently gained iconic status within Canada, and is now regarded as a national symbol. The term "loonie" has since become synonymous with the Canadian dollar itself. The town of

Echo Bay, Ontario Macdonald, Meredith and Aberdeen Additional is a township (Canada)#Ontario, township in Algoma District, Ontario, Canada. Originally surveyed as separate geographical townships, Macdonald and Meredith were incorporated as a single, municipal town ...

, home of

, erected a large loonie monument in his honour in 1992 along the highway, similar to Sudbury's 'Big Nickel'.

Lucky loonie

Officials for the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics invited the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

's ice making consultant, Dan Craig, to oversee the city's

E Center The Maverik Center, originally known as the E Center, is a 12,000-seat multi-purpose arena located in West Valley City, Utah, United States. Construction on the arena started in 1996 and was completed in time to hold its first event on September ...

arena, where the ice hockey tournament was being held. Craig invited a couple of members from the ice crew in his hometown of Edmonton to assist. One of them, Trent Evans, secretly placed a loonie at centre ice. He originally placed a dime, but added the loonie after the smaller coin quickly vanished as the ice surface was built up. He placed the coins after realizing there was no target at centre ice for

referees A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other titl ...

to aim for when dropping the puck for a

faceoff A face-off is the method used to begin and restart play after goals in some sports using sticks, primarily ice hockey, bandy, floorball, broomball, rinkball, and lacrosse. During a face-off, two teams line up in opposition to each other, and the ...

. A thin yellow dot was painted on the ice surface over the coins, though the loonie was faintly visible to those who knew to look for it. Keeping the coin a secret, Evans told only a few people of its placement and swore them to secrecy. Among those told were the players of the men's and

women's A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...

teams. Both Canadian teams went on to win gold medals. Several members of the women's team kissed the spot where the coin was buried following their victory. After the men won their final, the coin was dug up and given to

Wayne Gretzky Wayne Douglas Gretzky ( ; born January 26, 1961) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player and former head coach. He played 20 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for four teams from 1979 to 1999. Nicknamed "the Great One ...

, the team's executive-director, who revealed the existence of the "lucky loonie" at a post-game press conference. The lucky loonie quickly became a piece of Canadian lore. The original lucky loonie was donated to the

Hockey Hall of Fame , logo = Hockey Hall of Fame Logo.svg , logo_upright = 0.5 , image = Hockey Hall of Fame, Toronto.jpg , caption = The Hall's present location on Yonge Street since 1992 , map_type = , former_name = , established = 1943 , location = 30 Y ...

, and Canadians have subsequently hidden loonies at several international competitions, including the

2008 Olympic Games The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Na ...

and the 2010 IIHF World Championships. Loonies were buried in the foundations of facilities built for the

2010 Winter Olympics )'' , nations = 82 , athletes = 2,626 , events = 86 in 7 sports (15 disciplines) , opening = February 12, 2010 , closing = February 28, 2010 , opened_by = Governor General Michaëlle Jean , cauldron = Catriona Le May DoanNancy GreeneWayne Gretz ...

in Vancouver. Capitalizing on the tradition, the Royal Canadian Mint has released a commemorative edition "lucky loonie" for each Olympic Games since 2004.

Composition

The weight of the coin was originally specified as 108

grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legum ...

s, equivalent to 6.998 grams. The coin's diameter is 26.5mm. When introduced, loonie coins were made of aureate, a

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

–

electroplated Electroplating, also known as electrochemical deposition or electrodeposition, is a process for producing a metal coating on a solid substrate through the redox, reduction of cations of that metal by means of a direct current, direct electric cur ...

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to ...

combination. Beginning in 2007, some loonie blanks also began to be produced with a

cyanide Cyanide is a naturally occurring, rapidly acting, toxic chemical that can exist in many different forms. In chemistry, a cyanide () is a chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of ...

-free brass plating process. In the second quarter of 2012, the composition switched to multi-ply

brass Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other with ...

-plated

steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...

. As a result, the weight dropped from 7.00 to 6.27 grams. This resulted in the 2012 loonie not being accepted in some vending machines. The Toronto Parking Authority estimated that at about $345 per machine, it would cost about $1 million to upgrade almost 3,000 machines to accept the new coins. The Mint stated that multi-ply plated steel technology, already used in Canada's smaller coinage, produces an electromagnetic signature that is harder to counterfeit than that of regular alloy coins; also, using steel provides cost savings and avoids fluctuations in price or supply of nickel. On April 10, 2012, the Royal Canadian Mint announced design changes to the loonie and

, which include new security features.

Commemorative editions

Alongside the regular minting of the loonie with the standard image of the common loon on the coin's reverse, the Royal Canadian Mint has also released commemorative editions of the one-dollar coin for a variety of occasions. These coins have a circulation-grade finish and have been made available to the public in five-coin packs and in 25-coin rolls in addition to being released directly into circulation.

Terry Fox loonie

The Terry Fox Loonie was unveiled in 2005 and designed by Senior Engraver Stanley Witten. The coin depicts the Canadian athlete, humanitarian, and cancer research activist

Terry Fox Terrance Stanley Fox (July 28, 1958 June 28, 1981) was a Canadian athlete, humanitarian, and cancer research activist. In 1980, with one leg having been amputated due to cancer, he embarked on an east-to-west cross-Canada run to raise money ...

. Following his design of the 2005 Terry Fox loonie, Witten told the

Ottawa Citizen The ''Ottawa Citizen'' is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. History Established as ''The Bytown Packet'' in 1845 by William Harris (journalist), William Harris, it was renamed the '' ...

that "while sculpting the design, I wanted to capture Terry fighting the elements, running against the wind, towering over wind-bent trees on a lonely stretch of Canadian wilderness."

Specimen set editions

In 1997, 2002, and each year since 2004, the Royal Canadian Mint has issued a one-dollar coin that depicts a different and unique image of a bird on the coin's reverse. These special loonies have limited mintages and are available only in the six-coin specimen sets.

First strikes

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

External links

Loonie value – 1935 to today

{{Portal bar, Canada, Money, Numismatics 1987 establishments in Canada Coins of Canada

Canadian one-dollar coin The loonie (french: huard), formally the Canadian one-dollar coin, is a gold-coloured Canadian coin that was introduced in 1987 and is produced by the Royal Canadian Mint at its facility in Winnipeg. The most prevalent versions of the coin sh ...