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The Canadian one dollar coin, commonly called the loonie, is a gold-coloured one-dollar coin introduced in 1987. It bears images of a common loon, a bird which is common and well known in Canada, on the reverse, and of Queen Elizabeth II on the obverse. It is produced by the Royal Canadian Mint at its facility in Winnipeg. The coin's outline is an 11-sided curve of constant width. Its diameter of 26.5 mm and its 11-sidedness matched that of the already-circulating Susan B. Anthony dollar in the United States, and its thickness of 1.95 mm was a close match to the latter's 2.0 mm. Its gold colour differed from the silver-coloured Anthony dollar; however, the succeeding Sacagawea and Presidential dollars matched the loonie's overall hue. Other coins using a curve of constant width include the 7-sided British twenty pence and fifty pence coins (the latter of which has similar size and value to the loonie, but is silver in colour). The coin has become the symbol of the Canadian dollar: media often discuss the rate at which the ''loonie'' is trading against other currencies. The nickname ''loonie'' (フランス語:''huard'' in French) became so widely recognized that in 2006 the Royal Canadian Mint secured the rights to it. When the Canadian two-dollar coin was introduced in 1996, it was in turn nicknamed the "toonie" (a portmanteau of "two" and "loonie"). ==Background== Canada first minted a silver dollar coin in 1935 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of George V's reign as king. The voyageur dollar, so named because it featured an Indian and a French voyageur paddling a canoe on the reverse, was minted in silver until 1967, after which it was composed primarily of nickel. The coins did not see wide circulation, mainly due to their size and weight; the nickel version weighed and was in diameter, and was itself smaller than the silver version. By 1982, the Royal Canadian Mint had begun work on a new composition for the dollar coin that it hoped would lead to increased circulation.〔 At the same time, vending machine operators and transit systems were lobbying the Government of Canada to replace the dollar banknotes with wider circulating coins. A Commons committee recommended in 1985 that the dollar bill be eliminated despite a lack of evidence that Canadians would support the move. The government argued that it would save between $175 and $250 million over 20 years by switching from bills that had a lifespan of less than a year to coins that would last two decades. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Loonie」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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