Submitted by Padgriffin t3_y7xaxy in todayilearned
Reply to comment by wordnerdette in TIL that in an effort to save $43.5, the Canadian Mint mailed the dies of the new $1 coin via a discount courier over using an armored car- which were promptly stolen and have never been found. This would lead to the adoption of the Loonie design as an emergency replacement. by Padgriffin
They were called voyageur dollars or silver dollars (although they hadn't been silver since 1967) when they were still being produced.
I was cleaning out the garage at my great uncles and I found a tin can full of Canadian and American silver dollars and half-dollars. Super cool find. I really like the design on the voyageur dollars. Half-dollars are cool too, kind of wish they were still in circulation
Up until silver got phased out, silver dollars and fifty cent pieces did circulate to a fair extent. Not entirely sure why the switch to nickel made them circulate less; I know I've never received either as change, even back in the 80s.
I've been in some people's homes where they had litterally hundreds of silver coins.
There was a common belief amongst some people at the time that the government decided to switch to nickel because the price of silver was going to skyrocket. In response a lot of people would habitually remove any silver coins from their change and store them at home, hoping to cash in later.
Stemming from that, the Canadian government started minting a massive amount of new quarters to replace the old ones which were being removed by the general populace. You can check out the minting numbers here.
The number of half dollars that they minted at that point also went up, but not anywhere near to the level that quarters were being minted.
When the dust settled after that change, we got hit with a major recession in the 80s. The combined inflation between 1980 and 1987 was ~64%.
Before that date of 1987 half dollars were minted at numbers comparable to the number of full dollar coins. But at that point the government cut production of half dollar coins by -90% per year, and pumped out 500,000,000 million loonies by the end of 1990 only 3 years later. For reference, the total number of 1 dollar coins in circulation in 1985 was something like 100,000,000, so they literally multiplied the total number of Canadian one dollar coins in existence by a factor of 6 in only 3 years.
At that point half dollars unofficially became collectors items rather than legal tender, even if they still could be used as the latter.
The fifty cent piece was expensive to produce, large and not considered to be a core part of Canadian coinage, so to save money, they haven't been minted in circulating quantities in quite some time. Still legal tender and in proof and collector sets, but it was decided that the cost wasn't worth the return for wide circulation.
Some of this actually had to do with the advent of the Vending Machine. Because Canadian and US coinage is so similar and basically interchangeable in the old mechanical machines, up until the loonie, you could make one mechanism that worked for 2 major markets. Big win. Add in parking meters and the likes, and the day to day things that relied on change now don't take a 50c coin, so it also became more obsolete through the way society uses coins.
Fast forward a few decades, and now the mint is penniless....
I just got a brand new 2022 half dollar at a US casino cashier. I have no idea why they bothered getting rolls of those unless quarters weren't as readily available. Casinos already try not to use dimes, $1 coins, $2 bills, $10 bills, and $50 bills.
A lot of times they will use half dollars vs 50 cent chips in blackjack.
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