Great idea! This is the first I've heard of it, lol.
Loonie, toonie to be made from steel to save money
Steel yourself, Canada, new one-dollar and two-dollar coins are about
to become the latest version of the proverbial plugged nickel.
In an effort to save taxpayers about $16 million annually, new
versions of the loonie and toonie will be introduced this spring made
from steel, replacing the more expensive nickel found in the current
versions of the coins.
A detailed summary of the change filed by the federal government in
the Canada Gazette last month says the new coins will be slightly
lighter, cheaper to produce and ship, and harder to counterfeit.
They're also going to cost Canada's coin-operated industries about
$40 million in recalibration costs to make vending machines recognize
the new coinage, says the government.
And businesses who count their coins by weight will have to first separate the old currency from the new.
The new coinage was announced in last year's federal budget but only received final cabinet approval late last month.
The roll-out has been delayed in part because some manufacturers in
the vending industry weren't ready to handle the new coins, according to
Kim Lockie, the past president of Canadian Automatic Merchandising
Association.
"It only delayed it, it didn't postpone it," said Lockie, a Fort
MacMurray, Alta., businessman whose company has 1,200 machines that
required reprogramming -- a three-month project.
"We just have to be ready as operators to be able to accept that."
Lockie, who spent last year as his industry association president
dealing with the mint, said operators never like eating the cost of
currency changes, but the process has been handled well by the
government.
"It's going to happen anyway so if we can partner we can both come
out ahead -- I can have ample leeway time to get my machines
programmed," he said in an interview.
The Canada Gazette says the current coins cost about 30 cents each to
produce, while Kim says he's been told the new loonies and toonies will
cost between four cents and six cents apiece.
A spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mint had little so say, because a
major media roll-out is planned nearer to the coins' actual release.
Alex Reeves did confirm the new coins are about to go into production
and should be in circulation in "early spring" -- likely late March or
April.
When the new coins were first proposed, the expectation was that they would weigh exactly the same as the old versions.
Consumers likely won't notice the weight difference, but the Canada
Gazette states that a truck load of the new loonies will weigh 980 kilos
less than the old version, and 286 kilos less for a truck full of
toonies, thus "improving fuel efficiency of transportation and reducing
the carbon footprint of delivering coins to the Canadian public."
More than one billion loonies have been produced by the Royal
Canadian Mint since the coin was introduced in 1987, while some 700
million toonies have been minted since 1996.
The mint produces about 30 million of each coin annually, and the
government says the elimination of the nickel element will reduce nickel
demand by about 539 metric tonnes a year -- just a tiny fraction of
Canada's domestic output.
The current loonie is made from bronze-plated nickel, while the
toonie has a ring of pure nickel around a copper alloy centre. The new
coins will use the same multi-ply plated steel technology used in the
penny, nickel, dime and quarter.
The change comes as nickel prices have fluctuated by as much as 1,000
per cent in recent years, according to the government, creating both
supply and cost issues.
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