Canadian Tooney

**Bonny** · 08-11-2010, 06:02 PM

Today at work we had some Canadians from Manitoba stop in. We were talking about the Looney (SP?) & the Tooney (SP?) Fours years ago we were up in Alberta & I had some Canadian two dollar bills left from a trip a few years back & left them as tips for the students working at restuarant. They said we haven't seen these things around for years. I didn't realize they replaced the two dollar bill with a coin. The Canadian fella said you get to many Tooneys in your pocket & it gets heavy. He gave me a Tooney to add to my collection of Looneys. My question is when did the Tooneys come out. The one I have says 1997. It looks like silver on the outside with a copper coin in the center, the queen on one side & a polar bear on the other side. There is D.G. Regina was it minted in Regina, Manitoba?

**Queen of Poop** · 08-11-2010, 06:42 PM

Originally Posted by Bonny

Today at work we had some Canadians from Manitoba stop in. We were talking about the Looney (SP?) & the Tooney (SP?) Fours years ago we were up in Alberta & I had some Canadian two dollar bills left from a trip a few years back & left them as tips for the students working at restuarant. They said we haven't seen these things around for years. I didn't realize they replaced the two dollar bill with a coin. The Canadian fella said you get to many Tooneys in your pocket & it gets heavy. He gave me a Tooney to add to my collection of Looneys. My question is when did the Tooneys come out. The one I have says 1997. It looks like silver on the outside with a copper coin in the center, the queen on one side & a polar bear on the other side. There is D.G. Regina was it minted in Regina, Manitoba?

The toonie has been around for a long time now. Some of them have 2 or 3 polar bears on them. The DG Regina is for the Queen. And FYI, Regina is in Saskatchewan, not Manitoba.

**Queen of Poop** · 08-11-2010, 06:43 PM

The Canadian 2 dollar coin, commonly called Toonie (also spelled Tooney[1] or Twoney [2], or Twoonie), was introduced on February 19, 1996 by Public Works minister Diane Marleau. The Toonie is a bi-metallic coin which bears an image of a polar bear, by Campbellford, Ontario artist Brent Townsend, on the reverse. The obverse, like all other current Canadian coins, has a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. It has the words "ELIZABETH II / D.G. REGINA" in a different typeface from any other Canadian coin; it is also the only coin to consistently bear its issue date on the obverse. Canada adopted the patented technology to make these coins from Italy. The engineer, and head of the Italian Mint, Dr. Nicola Ielpo, patented the technology of interlocking two metals in coins in 1990.[3]
It costs 16 cents to mint a Toonie, which is estimated to last 20 years. The discontinued two-dollar bill cost six cents to print and, on average, each bill lasted only one year.[4]

**Bonny** · 08-11-2010, 07:13 PM

Thanks Queen of Poop, that is very interesting.

**Catty1** · 08-11-2010, 09:46 PM

Bit of trivia - a number of the coins minted in 1996 actually came apart when dropped! I have one somewhere...lol. However, they became much more solid after that.

Here's the toonie and loonie respectively, showing both sides.

The U.S. tried out a $1 coin, the 11-sided Susan B. Anthony - but seems it didn't last. Not sure why.

**pomtzu** · 08-12-2010, 07:52 AM

Originally Posted by Catty1

The U.S. tried out a $1 coin, the 11-sided Susan B. Anthony - but seems it didn't last. Not sure why.

It didn't last because it was almost the same size as the quarter, and it was too easy to confuse the two, even tho the dollar had the flat edges. It was jamming vending machines also, when mistakenly used as a quarter. It was not a popular coin with anybody.

I'm glad it didn't last!