Canadian Coinage

[James SamuelCole]

I've just picked up a Canadian 1 cent piece dated 1917. When did Canada go decimal?

[Chris Perkins]

Without googling, I think it was from the beginning of the unified Canadian currency, c.1860s.

[Paddy]

As far as I can see from my old copies of Krause, all the centrally issued coinage in the name of Canada has been decimal. The earliest seem to be around 1858, although the Dominion coinage starts in 1870.

There were some halfpenny and penny token issues in some of the provinces during the 19th century and even some in the denomination of "sou" derived from the French.

[copper123]

As in Sou for femail pig?

[wlewisiii]

No, from sol or solidus. The livre had 240 deniers (pennies) or 20 sou (sol) to the Livre (Livre tournois) or pound of silver which should sound slightly familiar around here 😉

[scottishmoney]

Canada officially went decimal beginning in 1858 with the first crown issued coinage.  It was primarily due to the proximity to the United States and a lot of US coinage circulating in Canada.  However, Newfoundland was a separate British possession and still traded in £sd until the 1880s when they also went decimal.  Newfoundland had it's own unique coinage and paper money right up until it became a Canadian province in 1949.