Loonie Loonie The loonie (), formally the Canadian one-dollar coin, is a gold-coloured coin that was introduced in 1987 and is produced by the Royal Canadian Mint at its facility in Winnipeg. The most prevalent versions of the coin show a common loon, a bird found throughout Canada, on the reverse and Queen Elizabeth II, the nation's head of state, on the obverse. Various commemorative and specimen-set editions of the coin with special designs replacing the loon on the reverse have been minted over the years. The coin's outline is an 11-sided curve of constant width. Its diameter of 26.5 mm
History of the Canadian dollar and British coppers, low-value tokens issued by private banks or merchants, even brass buttons in some cases. Working with the banks, the federal government gradually had all of the pre-Confederation and foreign pennies removed from circulation. In 1876, the Canadian one-cent coin finally was issued. The new Canadian government issued its first notes in 1870. The first issue was in denominations of twenty-five cents (nicknamed a "shinplaster"), one dollar and two dollars. The twenty-five cent note featured Britannia, the one-dollar note featured Jacques Cartier, and the two-dollar note featured General James Wolfe and the Marquis de Montcalm. The twenty-five cent