I wanted to do this comic sooner after my trip to Canada, but it got away from me.
I’m sure lots of Americans have wondered what happens when Canadians receive American money. From a very unscientific study (googling and trusting the first bit of information I found) American coins are treated just like normal money and people don’t bat an eye when they receive it in Canada, at least in the cities close to the border. Hopefully there’s a Canadian reader who can provide some comments on this. The same page I found also said that you can’t really exchange it for profit.
The real question is, do vending machines in Canada discriminate between American and Canadian quarters? I would imagine that would be the one sticking point.
a friend of mine from Canada gave me a 2 dollar coin, which is quite similar to a 2 euro coin. For some weird reason I keep it in my wallet instead of ending the confusion and throwing it out.
I lived for most of my life very near the border on the west coast of Canada and we did get quite a bit of American money. if it was coins usually you’d just treat it the same as Canadian money because the difference is so little and it’s all the same size basically though if you had bills then shops would generally honour the exchange rate at a flat rate based on the current area of fluctuation. And also American shops would generally accept Canadian money in the same way (up to quarters anyway) when they were near the border though on the west coast there is almost nothing between the border and Seattle. Not sure what Bellingham counts as but you don’t really notice it on the way down.
It is, as you point out though, a common joke to proclaim yourself rich upon finding American money. This is less common and less relevant now though because the exchange rate isn’t particularly massive.
Also, a Canadian 2 dollar coin (toonie, w00t for trivia) was introduced in 1996 to replace the 2 dollar bill (which I’m old enough to remember =D). It is indeed similar to the 2 Euro coin as well as the 2 Pound coin in the U.K. which has been phased into use since 1998 though had seven commemorative editions prior to that the first one being in 1986 to celebrate the commonwealth games in Scotland. (can you tell i pulled that one off wiki?)
Euro as a currency of course has only been in use since I was 14, we were learning German and learned all about marks and that and then they went and changed it on us. Pfft! But again from wiki, it says that it was introduced into the financial market Jan 1st 1999 and is the second most traded currency in the world (to the us dollar naturally) but it has the highest combined monetary value at 800 billion Euros in circulation as of June 2010.
Also at this point in time the pound is getting weaker and the Euro stronger and the pound to Euro exchange rate is about that of the USD to the CND. Britain is shitting itself. Between the price of living and the dire political situation at the moment I keep thinking about just giving it up and moving back to Canada, but I haven’t had time to travel Europe yet while I’m close. so next time the Euro takes a dip I’ll be in there!
I live in northern Alberta and work in a fast food restaurant. I see my fair share of American coinage, which we treat as standard Canadian cash. However, we don’t accept American bills. No idea why, just store policy.
Thanks everyone for the input, now I can say with some authority how Canadians treat American coins. Awesome!
Living in Michigan, Canadian change got mixed in with our money all the time. I thought that was normal until I came to NYC. The coins are all about the same size…