By Richard Giedroyc, World Coin News June 10, 2010

This article was originally printed in World Coin News.
>> Subscribe today!

Urban legends have a nasty habit of spreading once their seed has been planted. It appears some carelessly made remarks from a local Toronto merchant that were followed by a report on a television station investigating those remarks may have initiated the latest concerns blossoming into a numismatic urban legend that Canada’s $2 “toonie” coin is being widely counterfeited.

Not so, say the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Royal Canadian Mint. Each were downplaying the April 21 broadcast in which the station reported a downtown Toronto merchant claiming he “gets them by the truckload,” meaning counterfeit $2 coins.

The broadcast included a comparison between two $2 Canadian coins, one of which depicts a larger portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on the obverse than on the other. The broaadcasters said the coin depicting the larger portrait was a counterfeit.

According to an April 21 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News report, “The problem with that [broadcast], according to the mint, is that millions of legitimate toonies have the ‘large head’ design. So merely having such a toonie is not enough to identify a fake.”

RCM spokesman Alex Reeves added, “Since 2003, all toonies have been struck with a new effigy of the queen.” Reeves further explained the effigy of the queen appearing on all Canada $2 coins made between 1996 and 2002 is a different as well as a smaller effigy than that on the currently issued coins. He described counterfeit $2 coins as appearing “very rarely.”

RCMP Sergeant Marc LaPorte told CBC News the police are not aware of any significant recent attempt to counterfeit the circulating $2 coin. He further stated a survey of the Toronto area police indicated there have not been any recent seizures of counterfeit $2 coins in the area. The RCM has struck more than 148 million $2 coins since 2003. The RCMP reported a total of 4,230 bogus $2 coins seized since 2006. In that year the RCMP and the Quebec police arrested an organized counterfeiting gang near Montreal that was producing counterfeit $1 and $2 coins. This was the first incident of an organized attempt to fake the coins since their individual introductions.

The RCMP indicated counterfeiting of Canadian bank notes is significantly more widespread, although still not a major problem for the public. The higher denomination bank notes are more attractive to counterfeiters due to their purchasing power. Preliminary statistics for 2009 made available to CBC News indicate about 70,000 counterfeit bank notes were passed or seized during that calendar year, with 27,061 of these detected counterfeits being the $100 denomination.

The $100 is the highest denomination now in circulation in Canada. A $1,000 denomination was in use until its circulation was discouraged at the request of law enforcement due to the denominations widespread use by criminals attempting to avoid detection by keeping their money in cash.

While no organized attempt to counterfeit the $2 coin “by the truckload” is currently known, the RCMP did seize $130,000 face value in counterfeit Canadian bank notes in a raid on a home in British Columbia during 2009. The RCMP reported the number of counterfeit bank notes either passed or seized has been on the decline since 2004, a year in which 650,000 fake bank notes were detected. There are more than one billion individual Canadian bank notes in circulation.

Canada has continuously strived to improve the security devices on its bank notes, adding innovative holographic stripes, raised ink, and watermarks to notes in recent years in an effort to stay one step ahead of counterfeiters.

The $2 coin is difficult for a counterfeiter to make, since it is a ringed bimetal coin. The Canadian $1 and $2 bank notes were each withdrawn from circulation soon after the introduction of the coins of the same denomination, each of these two coins having replaced the notes as a cost saving measure.

More Coin Collecting Resources:

• North American Coins and Prices

• Subscribe to our Coin Price Guide, buy Coin Books &  Coin Folders and join the NumisMaster VIP Program

• Strike It Rich with Pocket Change, 2nd Edition