Do Canadian coins have mint marks?

Discussion in 'World Coins' started by pballer225, Jul 11, 2012.

  1. pballer225

    pballer225 Member

    I've just about completed my lincoln cent set and I think it would be cool to try to put together a canadian cent set starting on 1920 when they started making the small cents. I want to know if the coins had different mint marks that I'll need to get for each year like the US coins have P, D, and S or if they only came from one mint. I also would like to know if any years had more than one design or type so I can consider my set complete. :) I'm not sure if they made proof cents, but if they did I'm not interesting in having them included.
     
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  3. Urban_Lawyer

    Urban_Lawyer Half dollar nerd

    Nope. Modern Canadian coins do not have mint marks in the sense American coins have mint marks. In the old days (when some Canadian coins were produced by the UK) you may find a "C" mint mark on gold coins that were made at the Ottawa mint instead of the UK's royal mint. Also, some Canadian pennies are marked with an "H" (for the Heaton mint in Birmingham, UK) but that stopped in 1907. Modern Canadian coins are all made in the same mint in Canada and don't need a differentiating mark.

    Now, that doesn't mean they don't use mint marks. Canadian mint marks mean things other than where the coin was made. For example, in the 1930s some coins had dots because the British king abdicated and a new obverse could not be created in a timely manner, and an old die had to be used. The dot differentiated "new" old coins from the original coins. A maple leaf was used in the same way in 1948 when the King lost the title "Emperor of India" and new dies weren't available in time for the new year. All sorts of other odd marks (including a teddy bear and the logo for the international polar year) have been used, but I believe all coins in a given year has them so there is no need to search for a "marked" coin and a "not marked" coin for a given year with exception of the dot and maple leaf marks noted above.

    Now, there IS a "W" mint mark for Winnipeg I have read about on specimen sets. I don't believe these are in general circulation though (someone correct me if I'm wrong) and you are unlikely to find them outside of a mint set.
     
  4. beachbum99

    beachbum99 Member

  5. pballer225

    pballer225 Member

    Thanks for the replies, I'll have to look into those, but I also just found that there are some P mint marks on cents after 2001. After doing more research it looks like the newer cents also were made in different alloys during the same years in the more modern coins. This is getting a little overwhelming :(
     
  6. pballer225

    pballer225 Member

    Okay so I think I've figured it all out. If anyone has anything to add I would really appreciate it! Here's what I have:

    1920-2001* one coin per year, no mint mark
    2002-2012** two coins per year, no mint mark and P mint mark varieties. P mint marked coins are made with steel cores instead of zinc.


    *there is a very rare 1936 dot cent. There are only 3 known so I'm excluding a slot in my collection for this coin.
    *some 1947 cents have a maple leaf next to the date (there also seem to be 2 varieties of the leaf) (these are slightly more common than 1947 no-leaf cents)

    **In 2006 there are 4 types, one with no mark, one with a P, two with RCM logo (one of which is magnetic and the other is not)
    **no 2008 cents had RCM marks, and they were all made with a steel core

    I'll worry about the Newfoundland cents later :)
     
  7. Bill in Burl

    Bill in Burl Collector

    The "P" mintmark isn't really a mintmark. It stands for "plated". This is a good time to start a Canadian small cent collection. The penny is no more here and every cent before the plating started is worth 2 cents in scrap copper. The banks here have been removing the old cents from circulation and sending them to the mint for melting.
     
  8. pballer225

    pballer225 Member

    The cents that don't have the mark are also plated though. The difference is that the marked ones are copper plated steel instead of copper plated zinc. I'm going to include both versions of each in my set just so it's more complete. And I have probably 10-12 pounds of the copper canadians from roll hunting earlier, so I've already got most of the copper ones for the set! :)
     
  9. scottishmoney

    scottishmoney Buh bye

    They are also sending pre-1982 nickels back to the mint. It will soon be difficult to find them. I am keeping all I can get my paws on.
     
  10. pballer225

    pballer225 Member

    I wish I lived in canada... it's very hard to find any canadian nickels over here, and they're almost always the new ones. I've only got 7 or 8 of the pre 1982's :(
     
  11. beachbum99

    beachbum99 Member

  12. pballer225

    pballer225 Member

    That's EXACTLY what I was looking for - THANKS! :D
     
  13. Hiddendragon

    Hiddendragon World coin collector

    They actually only used the P for like 5-6 years. I don't know the dates offhand but they stopped sometime around 2007. Now they use a symbol instead that isn't a letter. So it went from no mintmark, to either none or P, to either P or the Royal Canadian Mint symbol, to just the RCM symbol. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have an album full of them.
     
  14. PennyGuy

    PennyGuy US and CDN Copper

    pballer2325: If you are going to embark on collecting Canadian coinage I would suggest investing this book: A Charlton Standard Catalogue, Canadian Coins, by W.K.Cross. It is updated every year and contains a wealth of information all in one place.
     
  15. Lon Chaney

    Lon Chaney Well-Known Member

    That only is true with the cents, because they were already plated. But when they started in with the P (for Plated), it affected all denominations, as they all began to be be plated, so there were some non-plated ones too.
     
  16. pballer225

    pballer225 Member

    Yeah, but I specifically was talking about cents :) I'm not worrying about the other denominations at the moment.
     
  17. Hiddendragon

    Hiddendragon World coin collector

    The coin shop I go to had a huge bin full of them and they sold them at face value. If you have a coin shop, maybe they have something similar. It's not on display but if you ask they pull it out.
     
  18. steve dolson

    steve dolson New Member

    My wife and I have come into a large quantity of coins some dating back to 1887 mostly Canadian coins and bank note. We are looking for someone to advise us as to if they are worth keeping or selling them off. if anyone knows someone that is honest to look at them it would be appreciated. We are located in Burlington Ontario Canada
    thank you
    steve
     
    panzerman likes this.
  19. panzerman

    panzerman Well-Known Member

    To bad, I live pretty far from Burlington. I am up in Ottawa. With banknotes/coins quality is key/ rarity etc.
     
  20. Bill in Burl

    Bill in Burl Collector

    Steve: My handle is 'Bill in Burl" as it has been for nearly 20 years on these coin sites. I live in Burlington in Headon Forest. PM me
     
  21. Stephen Street

    Stephen Street New Member

    It is a pity that canadian banks are destroying old 1 cent pieces, here in the uk, our dealers save them and they are on sale at very reasonable prices, some of my dealers have a good selection of them, some from victorian times
     
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