Encyclopedia > Loonie

  Article Content

Loonie

Loonie is the unofficial but commonly-used name for Canada's gold-coloured one-dollar coin. It bears an image of a common loon, Canada's national bird, on the reverse. This image replaced the planned image of a voyageur which was lost in transit to the Royal Canadian Mint at Winnipeg.

The coin was introduced during the 1980s, but was unpopular until the government withdrew the one-dollar bill from circulation. Both occurred when Brian Mulroney (which rhymes with "loonie") was Prime Minister; hence the coin was in its early years sometimes called "Mulroney's loonie," but tis term has largely died out.

By extension, the loonie (huard in French) is a slang term for the Canadian dollar.

See also

External Links

  • Royal Canadian Mint (http://www.mint.ca/en/collectors_corner/circulation/index.htm?cookie%5Ftest=1)

Loonie (short for lunatic) is an inclusive term used by residents of the lunar colony in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Shoreham, New York

... Pacific Islander, 2.16% from other races, and 0.24% from two or more races. 2.88% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. There are 145 households out of ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 40 ms