Hi guys and gals,
Thanks for the visit! We just wanted to share our thoughts on how to increase our understanding of Canadian coins. This is meant to be a very basic view of what kind of coins we expect to find in Canada that has Canadian roots. Depending on the area of your digging, you can find coins which are tied to other parts of the world. The focus here will be on Canadian coins..
Given 2017 is the 150th anniversary of Canada, we all know that 1867 is very important in terms of “Canada”. What is this 1867 date?
Canada (1867)
Canada became a nation, the Dominion of Canada in 1867. This explains why this year is being celebrated as the 150th year anniversary. The Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the “British North-America Act”, which recognized a constitution of a new country written by who was known as the “Fathers of the confederation”. At the time this represented the unification of three provinces:
- Nova-Scotia
- New-Brunswick
- Canada (now Quebec and Ontario)
Without too much details of history in order to keep this fairly short; here are the key dates of other provinces entering the confederation:
- 1870: Manitoba and North West Territories
- 1871 British-Columbia
- 1873 Prince Edward Island
- 1898 Yukon Territory
- 1905 Alberta and Saskatchewan
- 1949 Newfoundland and Labrador
- 1999 Nunavut
The first coins of the “Dominion of Canada” introduced in 1870 were silver 5,10,25 and 50 cents.
In 1876 the “Dominion of Canada” released it’s first one cent coin.
Province of Canada vs Dominion of Canada
This being said, you might find some “one cent” coins with the word Canada at the bottom which is older than 1876. This would be the 1858-1859 1 cent coins from the province of Canada and not the “Dominion of Canada”. The 5,10 and 20 cents coins from the province of Canada were issued in 1858. The 5 and 10 cents coin design from the province of Canada was reused for the “Dominion of Canada” 1870 coins.
New-Brunswick coins
Between 1861 and 1864, New-Brunswick issued 1/2, 1, 5, 10 and 20 cents denomination coins. The 1/2 and 1 cent were struck in bronze and the others in silver.
Nova-Scotia coins
Between 1861 and 1864, Nova-Scotia issued 1/2 and 1 cent denomination coins. They were the only Nova-Scotia coins and were struck in bronze.
Prince-Edward Island coins
In 1871, PEI issued a 1 cent coin which was struck in copper. They then entered the confederation 2 years later.
Newfoundland and Labrador
The coins of Newfoundland are of historical importance as Newfoundland and Labrador was a British colony until 1907, and a Dominion of Newfoundland until 1949, when Newfoundland and Labrador became the tenth province of Canada. The dates of these coins range from 1865 to 1947. The denominations range from 1,5,10,20,25,50 and 2$ coins. The 2 dollar coins were issued between 1865 and 1888. The special thing about this particular coin is that it was struck in GOLD!!!
This is just a short introduction to the variety of coins in our beautiful country of Canada. We barely touched the surface of what is to learn on coins. The key take away from this blog post is that there is always something to learn about coins. The more you learn, the more you understand the history of Canada and the world.
We hope you enjoyed the short read! If you have not seen our youtube channel please check it out and subscribe to follow us on our weekly episodes related to metal detecting on the east coast of Canada!
Cheers and happy hunting!
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