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- See also loony (short for "lunatic"), which is sometimes spelled 'loonie'.
Loonie is the unofficial but commonly-used name for Canada's gold-coloured, bronze-plated, one-dollar coin. It bears images of a common loon, a well-known Canadian bird, on the reverse, and of Queen Elizabeth II on the obverse.
The design for the coin was meant to be a voyageur theme, similar to the country's previous one dollar/silver dollar coin, but the reverse dies were lost in transit to the Royal Canadian Mint in Winnipeg. In order to avoid possible counterfeiting a different design was used *. The coin was released to the public on 30 June 1987, and circulation of the one-dollar banknote was intentionally reduced at the same time to forestall any reluctance by the public to accept the new coin. As a result, the introduction of the coin was successful in achieving public acceptance in a fairly smooth fashion.
The switch occurred when Brian Mulroney (rhymes with loonie) was Prime Minister; hence the coin was in its early years sometimes called Mulroney's Loonie or the Mul-loonie, but use of these terms has largely subsided.
The coin has become the symbol of its currency (newspapers will often discuss the rate at which the loonie is trading against the greenback), and as such, loonie (huard in French) is a slang term for the Canadian dollar in general.
On occasion the coin has shown other images, for instance the National War Memorial to commemorate VE day, and in 2005, a portrait of Terry Fox; it is still, however, referred to as a loonie.
Special edition includes:
- 1992: 125th Anniversary of the Confederation, showing children and the Parliament Building. The regular loon design was also minted that year bearing the double date "1867-1992".
- 1994: National War Memorial in Ottawa, Canada
- 1995: Peacekeeping Monument, Ottawa
- 2004: Lucky loonie celebrating Canada's Olympic athletes.
- 2005: The Terry, a 25th Anniversary of the Terry Fox's Marathon of Hope. Fox is the first ever Canadian to be featured on a circulation coin.
- 2006: Another lucky loonie celebrating Canada's Olympic athletes. The 2006 version was created by artist Jean-Luc Grondin, and features a redesigned loon taking off in flight and the Canadian Olympic Committee logo.
The coin is made of bronze-electroplated nickel. The total composition of the coin is 91.5% nickel and 8.5% bronze; The bronze is about 88% copper and 12% tin.
In 2005, the loonie gained an American neighbour when Minnesota's state quarter featured a loon, that state's official state bird. Like the Canadian dollar, Minnesota's loon also faces right with its head raised.
The Lucky Loonie
In recent years, the golden-colored loonie became associated with Canada's winning hockey and curling teams and has been viewed as a good-luck charm in international competition. The legend began during the 2002 Winter Olympics, when the Canadian icemaking team responsible for the ice surfaces in the ice hockey tournament had buried a loonie under centre ice. Both the men's and women's hockey teams would win gold in the tournament, the men's 50 years to the day after their last gold medal victory. Following the Games, Team Canada executive director Wayne Gretzky recovered the coin and gave it to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
The legend is also prevalent in curling, as the Kevin Martin rink at the same Olympics had won silver medals on a sheet with silver-colored quarters underneath the surface. At the 2006 Winter Olympics, the Canadian icemakers in the curling tournament buried two loonies, one at each end of the sheet — coincidentially, the Brad Gushue rink would win the gold medal there. In the same Olympics, the icemakers at the hockey tournament announced that they would not bury a loonie under the ice — coincidentally the men's team finished out of the medals.
This legend is kept alive by the Royal Canadian Mint, which has since issued specially-designed "Lucky Loonies" for each year the summer and winter Olympics Games are held.
Trivia
- When the new coin portrait of Queen Elizabeth II was first issued in 1990, a legend surfaced that the artist had simply added the image of the so-called "King's crown" to a portrait of the Queen, and that she was never meant to be seen wearing that headgear. This is patently false; she posed personally for the portrait wearing one of her usual crowns.
External links
- The chemistry of the loonie
- Snopes: A loon appears on Canada's one-dollar coin because the original dies, featuring a different design, were lost in transit.
- Loonie at centre ice
"Loonie"