Canada has been upgrading its currency in response to advances in counterfeiting technology. The old five dollar “blue jay” which served for a quarter century, is now getting hard to find. The 2001 “kids playing hockey” five was not technically advanced enough to deal with today’s counterfeitors, though it’s literary quotation from an old Roch Carrier story was charming: “Les hivers de mon enfance étaient des saisons longues, longues. Nous vivions en trois lieux: l’école, l’église et la patinoire; mais la vraie vie était sur la patinoire / The winters of my childhood were long, long seasons. We lived in three places—the school, the church and the skating rink—but our real life was on the skating rink.” Attempts to introduce a five dollar coin to save money fell flat when the public was polled.
This November, the new polymer “space five” was released. It features an astronaut, the “space arm” and a view of the earth. They are just now becoming common, and I’m very pleased with them. Astronaut Chris Hadfield was given a pre-release one to carry into space (see below):
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