This politicizes the tendering and accepting of money itself. Imagine someone offering this coin as change to someone who doesn't want to accept it for religious or similar reasons. They politely ask the cashier to keep that coin and give them some other monetary coinage instead. It's an awkward moment as the merchant has no incentive to offend the customer.

So what is a merchant to do when he's about to give change to someone and he has a choice of using this coin or other coins. Without knowing the sentiments of the customer in advance, he realizes than giving this coin as change may cause an embarrassing situation, so those coins are given only after all other change is gone. Merchants then take all those coins to the bank and deposit them as part of the weeks profit OR exchange them for ordinary coins that won't risk offending customers.

End result is that merchants will for the most part accept them but not give them out. They will go to the banks as deposits or exchanged for unoffensive coinage and the only people who will want them will be collectors and those customers that are not offended by them. They will therefore fail to enter general circulation.

I didn't see any serious kissing going on, and the creature on the left appeared to have an earring, while the one on the right didn't have one showing. They both had fat lips and may be a good caricature of Canadian society; I don't know.

Maybe it's a belated April Fool Day joke from the Canadian Mint.

Whatever else it is, it's a hideous coin.

here's the colored version

www.mint.ca/store/dyn/MED...gespeed.ic.nshwdFqJsG.png

Like the Sacajawea coin, it may soon enough die its own natural death.

There's only one reason why the Sacajawea coin failed, and that is simply because you can't buy anything with $1 in the USA. Down this way, it's a different story. Right now I got 4 of them in my change bucket on my desk, and bunch more in the car. They are quite popular here and preferred over paper 1's. In fact, it's much harder to find paper 1's than these coins.

But down here you can buy things like a bag of lemons, apples or many other fruits and the cost is always $1. If a fruit is less expensive, it's a bigger bag, and if it's more it's a more expensive fruit, it's a smaller bag, but always $1. The coins are quite convenient -- because you can buy stuff for $1.

If the mint was smart, they would issue $5 or $10 coins. Then they would be accepted and used in the USA, and if they did, $1 coins would become popular as a consequence. People won't bother with petty $1 coins in the USA otherwise.

I couldn't find them at usmint.gov so they may be "collectable!"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacagawea_dollar

Canadian Loonie

First the Loonie, now the Faerie?