Cents and sensibilities
The Conservatives have decided to get rid of the penny, saying it costs too much to make. But they haven’t killed the coin in any real sense, writes
Decades from now, a grandparent somewhere will enact a little ceremony. This will involve summoning the grandchildren once they’ve reached some seemingly appropriate age.
A few words or even a little speech will ensue, about a time and an era that, to the youngsters, will seem roughly adjacent to the Late Cretacious Period. Into each grandchild’s hand will then be placed a tiny round object the colour of copper. On one side will be a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. On the other will be two maple leaves with the legend reading “1 CENT” on top, and “CANADA” at the bottom, with the date “2012” in between.
It will be a simple, modest act, this transforming of currency into keepsake — a reminder of forebears and beloved nanas and grandpas. Years later, those same pennies will serve as memento mori, reminders that, no matter how long one stays on the planet, this time will come to be seen as shockingly brief.
The safety of this prediction is borne out in shinplasters and half-crowns.
Shinplaster was slang for a sort of miniature paper money, worth 25 cents apiece when they were issued in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. On the front of these notes sits a portrait of Britannia on her shield, and in bold print, “The Dominion of Canada,” followed below in a different typeface, and smaller font, “will pay on demand” the sum of 25 cents.
It was a kind of I.O.U., this little piece of cheap paper issued by the government in lieu of expensive coins.
But their antiquity and uniqueness is only part of the reason that both my Canadian grandmother and then my mother made the passing of them to me a fondly remembered event, so much emotion and memory distilled into a decorous span of minutes.
Of the half-crowns, I have less immediate knowledge, since they were bestowed on me by relatives when I was merely “a wee bairn,” ferried across the pond to Britain to be displayed with fatherly pride to a legion of rabbits and relations.
This was another tradition, akin to putting a new coin in a new wallet as a kind of harbinger, so that it would never be empty, not really empty.
I have them still, a sack of half-crowns bearing the likes of a bearded King George V (from 1935) and the shaven King George VI (1940). Back then, a half-crown was worth two shillings and sixpence, part of a monetary language now only vaguely remembered.
You can’t spend a half-crown at the local chip shop in London these days, just as you can’t walk into an East York variety store with a shinplaster and expect to use it as payment.
Yet half-crowns and shinplasters still exist, generations removed from their original owners, as stores of great value utterly removed from price.
The Conservative government may have lowered the retirement age of Canadian pennies with extreme prejudice, but they haven’t killed them in any real sense.
A lot of us still have the half-crowns and shinplasters — and ha’pennies and thruppence — to prove it.
Half-crowns and shinplasters still exist, generations removed from their original owners, as stores of great value utterly removed from price