From public donations to collaborations with partners, the Bank of Canada Museum’s acquisitions in 2024 highlight the relationships that help shape the National Currency Collection.
Acquisitions are about strengthening relationships
Each year the Museum receives dozens of offers from the public to donate or sell objects to the National Currency Collection. Add to that the ever-growing list of objects the curators bring to the acquisition committee’s attention to develop the collection. Yet beyond the donations and purchases, items that are otherwise restricted from public ownership can be obtained only from the organizations that are responsible for their manufacture or their seizure. Therefore, it is important for the Museum to have relationships with these organizations.
The RCMP’s National Anti-Counterfeiting Bureau
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has a core team dedicated to investigating crimes related to counterfeiting. The National Anti-Counterfeiting Bureau (NACB) physically examines counterfeit bank notes and is the central repository of all counterfeit currency recovered from circulation in Canada. The NACB maintains a national database of counterfeit bank notes and assists in identifying counterfeit trends and supporting criminal investigations. The expert team also receives and examines other items that may be related to counterfeiting and fraud, including negotiable instruments such as cheques and stamps, travel and identity documents, and coins and payment cards. Statistics from the RCMP show that the number of counterfeit notes and coins in circulation has been declining overall. But any threat of counterfeiting can potentially erode people’s confidence in using cash.
The latest transfer from the RCMP’s National Anti-Counterfeiting Bureau includes these unusual and perhaps even bizarre fabrications made to resemble a two-dollar coin.
Source: Canada, 2 dollars, counterfeit coin, 1990 | NCC 2024.12.1
Royal Canadian Mint
As the producer and distributor of Canada’s coins, the Royal Canadian Mint maintains a strong relationship with the Museum. Over the years, the Mint has transferred its holdings of production tools to the Museum to preserve the Mint’s legacy as a leading organization in coin production. The process of minting coins has evolved. Fortunately, the National Currency Collection includes objects that showcase many of the Mint’s important milestones. In 2024, the Mint transferred hundreds of master dies and punches to the Museum for long-term preservation and public appreciation.
These steel matrices for a .99999 gold coin weighing 10 kg and with a face value of $100,000 commemorate Iljuwas’s (Bill Reid)’s Spirit of Haida Gwaii sculpture. The matrices are the largest ever produced by the Royal Canadian Mint. Each one is 18.8 cm in diameter and weighs over 18 kg. Source: Canada, Royal Canadian Mint, 100,000 dollars, coining matrices, Spirit of Haida Gwaii, 2011 | NCC 2024.17.34; 2024.17.206
In 1981, the Royal Canadian Mint produced this matrix for a commemorative circulating dollar coin to mark the patriation of the Canadian Constitution. Yet the coin was never issued. Instead, a “Voyageur” nickel dollar circulated that year. The Mint did commemorate the adoption of the Constitution Act, 1867 in 1982 with a nickel dollar featuring a reproduction of the Fathers of Confederation painting on its reverse. Source: Canada, Royal Canadian Mint, 1 dollar, coining matrix, Canadian Constitution, 1981 | NCC 2024.17.131
In 1965, the Royal Canadian Mint produced and distributed a set of tokens as samples to promote its product and expand its clientele on the international market. This is the matrix for the 50 tokens. Source: Canada, Royal Canadian Mint, 50 tokens, coining matrix, 1965 | NCC 2024.17.257
The Rooms
The Museum also maintains relationships with other cultural institutions through long-term loan agreements. Sometimes these loans become permanent. Earlier this year, The Rooms in St. John’s officially transferred a sheet of Government of Newfoundland treasury notes from its collection to the Museum. Issued in 1850, the £1 notes were among the first examples of paper money to circulate in Newfoundland. They were printed in sheets of four notes, numbered by hand and signed by two commissioners. Today, early Newfoundland notes are very rare. This sheet had been on loan to the Museum since 1974. Though the exact purpose of the original loan is undocumented, it was likely intended to exhibit this unique item in the new Bank of Canada Currency Museum, which was in planning as part of the expansion of the Bank’s head office in the mid-1970s. Sheldon Carroll, a former curator of the National Currency Collection, would likely have negotiated the loan from The Rooms through prominent Newfoundland numismatist C. Francis Rowe, who by profession was a meteorologist at St. John’s International Airport. Over time, the terms of the loan expired and were never updated until The Rooms contacted the Museum to inquire about the sheet of notes.
The first paper money for general circulation in Newfoundland was notes of £1 and £5 drawn on the provincial treasury. This sheet of notes is numbered, signed, and ready to be cut and put into circulation.
Source: Newfoundland, 1 pound, treasury note, sheet, 1850 |NCC 2024.15.1
And there’s always a steady stream of acquisitions from the public
Beyond the items acquired from our institutional partners, the National Currency Collection continues to grow each year thanks to public donations and private purchases. Here are some more treasures acquired in 2024:
The Museum completed another rare Canadian specimen set with the addition of a 1-cent and a 25-cent specimen to the Museum’s 5-cent specimen. No 10-cent or 50-cent coins were minted in 1927. Source: Canada, George V, 1 cent and 25 cents, specimens, 1927 | NCC 2024.31.1/2s
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Global Money Week
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March Break at the Museum
Share part of your March Break with us at the Museum. Drop in for free family activities about counterfeiting and how our bank notes are designed to prevent it or check out our online activities.
Money’s metaphors
Buck, broke, greenback, loonie, toonie, dough, flush, gravy train, born with a silver spoon in your mouth… No matter how common the expression for money, many of us haven’t the faintest idea where these terms come from.
