WOLCOTT: Clinking Canadian coin cache

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Bill Wolcott, Lockport Union Sun & Journal Reporter James Neiss/Gazette

August 14, 2010

By Bill Wolcott Lockport Union-Sun & Journal The Lockport Union-Sun %26 Journal Sat Aug 14, 2010, 10:16 PM EDT

Let’s say you have 30 cents in change. There are only two coins, but one of them is not a quarter. What are the coins?

It took a bit of time for me to catch on to my great nephew’s puzzler. Now I’m wondering what to do with my Canadian coins, a quarter and a nickel.

One night this week, I walked over the Rainbow Bridge to Canada.

A whole different country is there, and I could not recall my last visit to our friendly neighbors. I avoided the casinos and the fudge — which is always a disappointment — sat down in the grass for a rock ’n’ roll band concert, looked over the cataracts and listened to folks speaking a smattering of languages.

One dad said something to his 8-year-old son in a foreign tongue, and the kid responded in American English. I wondered how that can happen. It would be great to be bilingual and able to think in two languages while walking over an international bridge — and be 8 years old.

I bought an ice cream cone while in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and got Canadian coins in change. That was five days ago, and I still have a moose and beaver in my pocket backing up Queen Elizabeth II. Her likeness is on all current Canadian coins.

I can’t spend my quarter and nickel, unless the cashier is asleep; I can’t throw them away, they are worth 27.5 cents, and nobody wants them.

I considered slipping them into the tip jar at Reid’s, where the ice cream cone was $1.50 and bigger, but couldn’t find the tip jar. (The cone in Canada was smaller and cost $3.50 plus tax.) Also, Reid’s had a rookie making cones Friday, and what kind of first impression would I leave?

So the coins still clinkle in my pocket. They have a different sound than U.S. coins, and I had to make up that word. Clinkle is a blend of clunk and clink, kind of a high-pitched clunk and a low-pitched clink.

The Canadians have a good sense of humor about their money. The $1 coin, which was introduced in 1987, quickly became the “Loonie,” not because the queen was on the obverse, but because of an engraving of a common loon. It’s not a royal loon.

You can’t buy a new $2 bill in Canada. It was replaced by a Twoonie in 1996, so Canadians have the Loonie-Twoonie to clink or clunk instead of folding money.

The Loonie has become the symbol of Canadian currency and, in 2006, the Royal Canadian Mint secured the rights to the name.

For now, I’ll save the coins, and the queen will come along.

Contact reporter Bill Wolcott at 439-9222, ext. 6246.

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