The Museum Blog
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September 22, 2026
The Money of Bytown
Bytown was a frontier town built on the construction of the Rideau Canal and a booming lumber industry. Access to different forms of money and banking facilities provided the liquidity necessary for the town to prosper into Canada’s capital. -
September 18, 2026
Teaching with the Vertical $20
Engage students with creative activities linking the new bank note to careers, civics, history, social studies and art. -
July 20, 2026
A summer road trip of Canadian tokens
We took a virtual road trip through nearly every Canadian province and territory via trade and souvenir tokens. -
June 22, 2026
Reminiscences of the 1976 Montréal Olympic Coin Program
The Olympic Coin Program was novel, ambitious, record-breaking and for some, life-changing—much like the Olympic Games that the program helped finance. -
May 26, 2026
The changing face of women on bank notes
From queens to changemakers, discover how real women are finding their place on bank notes around the world. -
February 10, 2026
Love tokens: Change of heart
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. -
January 20, 2026
Three 50-cent pieces: The big changes to our small change
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. -
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. -
August 21, 2025
Whatever happened to the penny? A history of our one-cent coin.
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. -
August 5, 2025
Good as gold? A simple explanation of the gold standard
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.
