Canadian Penny

[gpimper]

Just more pocket change but is neat that this one made it's way all the way to Texas.

[brandm24]

I have few older Canadian coins, but not any of these small cents that a recall. I always liked the maple leaf design very much. A nice Texas find, Greg.

Bruce

[Figleaf]

Like e.g. the present day euro coins, this coins has two different messages on its sides. The portrait side is all about the UK and its feudal and anti-revolutionary traditions. The value side is devoted to Canada.

The parts that tell you "we reject the French revolution" range from the royal title (REGINA) to the use of Latin and DEI GRATIA. On contemporary UK coins, the country figured only as a title. The French revolution did away with nobility and especially the king. It replaced the prevalent Latin, a language that excluded the poor and uneducated, on the coins with the language of the country  - though in fairness, many French royal coins were already in French, but that was the exception, not the rule.

Most important, the French revolution was built around the idea of the sovereignty of the people, rather than the sovereignty of the ruler. The country belonged to the population and they chose who could rule it. The British clung to the medieval concept that the ruler was chosen "by the grace of god". The country belongs to the ruler, which is shown on the coins by putting the ruler central. The land was a personal possession that would be inherited just like other people inherit the stuff their parents leave them. Compare the Canadian side, that just says CANADA (not queen of Canada) and sports a rather nice national symbol, free of crowns, lions, eagles and other medieval heraldry.

Of course, in 1964, none of the stick-in-the-mud British stuff was relevant in Canada. It had a constitution and - apart from a pretty powerless rep of the queen - functioned as a republic. Moreover, it was quite irrelevant in the UK also. The people had in fact acquired sovereignty under the Hanoverians, 100 years before this coin was issued and pretended it wasn't so with royal pageantry. They had a set of rules that amounted to a constitution but pretended that nobody had written them down so they didn't count.

Peter

[Prosit]

I have a complete set of circulating Canadian Large and small cents. Fascinating series and interesting history.
I recommend A Guide Book of Canadian Coins (Official Whitman Guidebook) and especially Striking Impressions: The Royal Canadian Mint.
The Striking Impressions book is a good read and very educational.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which cents in recent years were actually circulation issue coins.
Seems simple enough on the surface but it is not. I have reference books with differing information.
So after all this time I am still not 100% sure in every instance what circulated and what was a collector coin.

Dale