Knowing your Bank notes
Suppose you walk into a bar frequented by currency collectors and in an attempt to join in you refer to a ‘planchette’ as a ‘rosette’ (beer mugs hit the tables and the pianist stops playing). This could be pretty humiliating and you’ll probably never be able to go to that bar again, at least not on numismatic night. To save you this possible embarrassment and also to further your education as a budding collector of currency, we’d like to help you familiarize yourself with the major elements of Canadian bank notes.
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Content type(s):
Blog posts
The Museum Blog
February 10, 2026
Love tokens: Change of heart
By: Graham Iddon
For centuries, people have been adding alternative messages to coins as political protests, advertising, commemoration and—most charmingly—love and affection. Such things are called love tokens.
Content type(s):
Blog posts
Subject(s):
Arts,
History
January 20, 2026
Three 50-cent pieces: The big changes to our small change
By: Graham Iddon
The maple leaves, beavers, schooners and caribous appear unchanged every year on our regular issued coins. But the 50-cent piece is a different story, because every time our coat of arms has changed, so has the coin.
Content type(s):
Blog posts
December 22, 2025
New acquisitions—2025 edition
From rare toonies to Métis scrip art, the Bank of Canada Museum’s 2025 acquisitions show how money and the economy shape Canadian lives.
Content type(s):
Blog posts
August 21, 2025
Whatever happened to the penny? A history of our one-cent coin.
By: Graham Iddon
The idea of the penny as the basic denomination of an entire currency system has been with Canadians for as long as there has been a Canada. But the one-cent piece itself has been gone since 2012.
Content type(s):
Blog posts
Subject(s):
History
August 5, 2025
Good as gold? A simple explanation of the gold standard
By: Graham Iddon
In an ideal gold standard monetary system, every piece of paper currency represents an amount of gold held by an authority. But in practice, the gold standard system’s rules were extremely and repeatedly bent in the face of economic realities.
Content type(s):
Blog posts
Subject(s):
Business,
Economics,
Financial literacy,
History
Grade level(s):
Grade 03,
Grade 10 / Secondary 4,
Grades 11 and 12 / Secondary 5
