Canada’s new dinosaur quarter

So, every once in a while, we Canadians do something kinda awesome. I know, I usually only cover Canada’s monumental fuck-ups under Harper, but I need to give props for the little niceties included in efforts like our current revamp of our monetary system — including new polymer notes and the elimination of the penny. The big news in this case is that Pachyrhinosaurus lakusai of Alberta is getting its very own quarter. Considering everything else under the sun has had its own quarter, it’s about time we started putting dinosaurs on our legal tender! Especially dinosaurs named after Canadian science teacher Al Lakusta, and which were themselves apparently native to Alberta. Canadian dinosaurs!

Okay, sure, it’s from the province that’s created the Wildrose Party, for those absurdist performance artists (that’s what they are, right?) who believe the CPC, despite its recent takeover by the former Reform Party, just isn’t conservative enough! But you gotta take your wins where they come.

Included in this initiative is some new tech that creates an image that will not rub off, seen previously on our poppy quarters, which will be used to imprint these coins with images of the dinosaur with glow-in-the-dark skeletons. That’s right, this line of specialty quarters will have glow-in-the-dark dinosaur skeletons. If one crosses my sweaty palms, despite its thirty dollar price tag, it’s going straight into a drawer and will not see the light of day except to charge its glow-in-the-dark ink.

Jen of Blag Hag actually beat me to this. For shame, I know.

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Canada’s new dinosaur quarter
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9 thoughts on “Canada’s new dinosaur quarter

  1. 1

    Okay thats pretty damned awesome.

    Australia has had polymer notes for 20 years now, great stuff but we don’t really do anything fancy with coinage except not really use it much

  2. 3

    That is very cool! I envy just about every other country’s money. The US has made some minor inroads into actual artistic and interesting currency with our state quarters and revamps of other coins and bills, but for the most part it’s all so crashingly boring.

    True story: Way back when, when I was still in my teens, I was once getting a submarine sandwich from a well-known chain. This particular location was hosting some new franchise owners for their training. Chatting with the cashier revealed that he was from Canada as he rang up my purchase and gave me back a five instead of the ten it should have been. When I pointed out his error, he exclaimed in frustration “I don’t know how you people manage with this money, it’s all the same color!” It was the first time I really thought about the fact that other countries actually have interesting currency.

  3. 4

    Dinosaur quarters? And some of them glow? Well played, Canada. Well played.

    We’ve had a handful of interesting coin designs here in the States over the past decade, but we really need to get off of the “everything has to have a President on it” kick. Even our dollar coins have Presidents on them again. Yeah, we get it, some of our past leaders did great things… now can we please have some pictures of other people? People who aren’t all dead politicians- with two exceptions on denominations hardly anybody carries? Or, better yet: pictures of… wait for it… something other than bust after bust after bust? I vote for sharks. It’s the only way we have any hope of upstaging dinosaurs.

    We should also drop all of our coins except the quarter and dollar denominations… perhaps the dollar too; it doesn’t see much use except for tolls. Dimes and nickels are just as useless as pennies at this point. It truly is a silly world where even our money costs us more than it’s worth.

  4. 5

    Now, if they’d made the Queen’s skull glow in the dark on the other side, it would have been *totally* badass! Still pretty freakin’ cool, though.

  5. 7

    That’s just what I’ll need for the suicide booth that I’ll be visiting tonight after the Alberta provincial election results are announced. That dinosaur would do less damage in a china shop that the Wackorose party will do the province.

  6. F
    8

    Wow. now that is a really cool coin. I wish governments would save their efforts and costs of producing novelty coins until they have something like this in the works. I may be a bit biased as a fan of science (although I’ve never been big on dinosaurs), but the coin is really well done.

  7. 9

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