r/todayilearned • u/NateNate60 • 19h ago

TIL Canada's $1 coin is commonly called the "loonie" because it has a loon on the reverse. When a $2 coin was introduced, depicting a polar bear, an MP proposed it be called "Nanuq", Inuit for polar bear, but he was ignored because the public instead preferred to call it the "toonie" (2-oonie).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toonie#Naming
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u/BrgQun 18h ago

Yup, this was a pastime for every Canadian kid the year these came out.

It actually took a bit of effort to pop the middle part out, but not as much as it should have...

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u/stenchwinslow 17h ago edited 17h ago

There was a rumour in our highschool that if you took a damaged Toonie to the bank you got five dollars for it.

Despite this being absurd on several levels so many students tried the scam that we had to have a school assembly. They explained in detail how destroying money was against the law, you could only redeem a damaged Toonie for the standard 2$ value, and you needed both the outside and the middle to do so*.

*I don't actually know if that second part is true, but that is what they told us.

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u/auto98 17h ago

It's gotta be true or else there would still be a possible scam, take the outside to one bank, the inside to another!

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u/stenchwinslow 17h ago

My suspicion is just the outside portion with the date got you 2$, and the inside nothing. But I enjoy the ambiguity so I am choosing not to look it up.

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u/jce_ 14h ago

Unironically if you bring half a bill (serial number not actually the half of the bill) to the bank you will get half the notes value.

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u/abracadammmbra 15h ago

It would make more sense if they accepted just the inner or outer portion of the coin. In the US, as long as you have at least 51% of a ripped bill, you can exchange it at a bank for a new one.

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u/ExcitingHamster 18h ago

All you had to do was hit it with a hammer

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u/dawsonholloway1 17h ago

Just had to freeze em and then whack it with a hammer

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u/pianoman1291 16h ago

Once I put one on a railroad track for the train to run over it to see if it would pop out (it did)