Why did you start an article about coins with the Canadian National Anthem?
O Canada! Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all of us command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
“Why did you start an article about coins with the Canadian National Anthem?”
Well, let me explain. Short answer, this article will be about the coinage of our neighbors in ‘The Great White North’ and how Canadian coinage and currency forged my early paths in the world of numismatics. When I was asked where I began, I relay this tome. I grew up in Upstate NY. Upstate in the thought that it wasn’t NYC. Where I was, smaller denomination Canadian coins circulated alongside US coins at face value. Even when $0.35 US equaled $1.00 CA, the quarters on down still were taken for full value. Pull a $1.00 worth of change from your pocket and Queen Elizabeth would be staring back at you for about $0.35. I started pulling the QEII coins and putting them aside. From time to time, I had George VI side eyeing me as well. The day I got a George V cent, I was enthralled! One day, I lined them all up by date and I realized that there was almost a complete run from 1940’s through the 1980’s for Cents and Nickels. Dimes went back to about the late 1960’s. Quarters back to the 1970’s. Didn’t know at the time that the Q’s and D’s pre-1969 were silver. Hence the lack of inclusion. I had a few, but nothing older than 1960. I jotted down all years from that year back to 1940. Four Columns noted as Cent, Dime, Nickel, Quarter. Then started crossing off the coins I had. That is where my love of Canadian Numismatics was born.
From then on, while others circulated towards US, I stayed with Canada and the world. To me, it was a far more interesting realm to discover. My first World Coin Non-Canada in the collection was one I still have today. Back in 1980 or so, my mother worked for a local bank. If a teller was stuck with non-US items in their drawer, it was cashed out and tossed in a can. At the end of the week or month, if no one wanted the treasures, they were tossed out. My mother would bring home the contents every time. The first piece I received was a worn 1909 Ha’Penny from England. It was found in a Half Dollar roll. Soon after, the bag of odds and ends came in with consistency. I pulled the oversize atlas from my 1968 Encyclopedia Brittanica set and flipped to the color plate world maps. Matching up the coins to their respective countries. It was exciting to a single digit age kid to learn geography and world history of a country I never knew before. Many no longer existing even by 1968 when the set was published. Fiji, British East Africa, Zanzibar, Rhodesia, Ceylon, Burma, Newfoundland, and many others. I matched each one up and wrote it down by year and denomination. Each new coin meticulously researched, logged, and noted. Then tossed into 2 containers. Ones I needed and ones I didn’t. My handwritten lists updated each and every week of my finds.
Over time, I did go the US route as well. Wheats, Nickels with the Indian, the odd Jefferson with the funny color and the big letter on the back… Through it all, I still stayed true to my Maple Leaf Coins! Now, my near complete collection goes all the way back to 1859 and beyond including the Maritime Possessions of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland. It was so much easier to find and fill the missing dates at a MUCH cheaper price than the US versions. Bags of $3 a pound bulk foreign, auction lots, garage sale coffee cans all had a gem to discover. I bought a 20-pound bag of mixed foreign from an unclaimed property auction for $70 with fees. An expensive venture of $3.50 a pound! Nearly 5 pounds of the bag was silver ranging from 0.100 fine up to 0.925. Since silver was right around $5 an ounce, no dealer near me bought “worthless foreign silver”. So, I got it cheap. Over time, my best Canadian finds included a 1926 Far Date Nickel found in a bag of 100 assorted KGV and KGVI coins for $4.00. A key date next to the 1925. An 1861 New Brunswick ½ Cent in a 4 for a dollar foreign box. A number of 1923 – 1925 cent coins, again the keys to the small cent series. All from bulk junk foreign lots. Once I discovered the Chalton Guide to Canadian Coins, my world opened to a never-ending search for varieties. You think the Van Allen guides to Morgans, Busts, and Lg Cents is huge, pick up a Chalton Guide!
Nowadays, the interest in world coins has skyrocketed. The dirt-cheap prices of yesteryear are long retired. World coins used to sell, with key exceptions, at half of the Krause Guides. Now, the prices are at or above retail. Mostly stemming from US coins going for far above their values, people trying to discover where their family originated from, and new collectors priced out of the pre-1964 US market.
A nice by-product of my collecting vein is at our shows or club meetings, when someone asks about a bag or can of “these weird coins I inherited”, the repeated response is the same. “Let me get our club expert!” That’s what great about world coins. You never know what you have until you look it up! I will always remember a show where a visitor was selling US coins. He knew every piece to the tiniest detail. Where he got it. How much was paid. What date it entered his collection. Then the box of word coins came out. “Now these, I have no idea about. I was offered $20 for the lot and thought it seemed like a good deal. I just want a second opinion.” I hear my fellow club member say “Let me get our club foreign expert.”
I looked through each one, pulling silver out, separating better pieces, sliding the ‘junk’ to the side. Then the bomb dropped. A nondescript presentation case marked Republic of Kiribati with an odd red coin in it. I didn’t recognize it? The subject was the marriage of then Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer. Face value was $150.00? I looked it up and my eyes widened! It was nearly a half ounce of 0.999 gold! It had toned blood red from the chemicals in the holder. The owner was shocked as well. He couldn’t remember where or when he got it. Gold at the time was about $1300 an ounce. Melt was around $620. He got $575 from a dealer. Came back and told me his story. Then, let me buy the reminder of the box for $50. I still made out well too!
In the end, I am going to pass on my best advice with world coins. Never dismiss what you do not know. You may pass on a diamond that you thought was glass!