A Canadian Coin, Cancelled (Waffled) by Mistake?

by Bill Snyder

I received pictures a few weeks ago of 2 'World Waffle' coins. "I got these from a friend in the minting business", the sender said. He went on to say that he had gotten them by way of a company that supplies "metal for the US mint and others. They get back 'scrap' from the mints to remelt", he went on. (He named the foundry but I hesitate to disclose it here).

One coin was German and one, Canadian.

The German 1 Mark was quite familiar. (As noted on another page, Germany recalled and waffled, and remelted a huge quantity of these pre-Euro coins. (see note way below)).

The Canadian 1 dollar 'loonie' was a surprise! (To my knowledge, Canada has never Mint-cancelled defective or recalled coinage before sending it out to be remelted). Here is what it looked like -

I was able to purchase both pieces, which came along with a piece of scrap webbing -

I was very interested in the Canadian piece! It was about the same size as an old German 2 DMarks. The cancellation marks looked very much like the marks on my waffled German 2 DM's. By rotating pictures to align depression marks, I was able to compare size and spacing of the depressed areas.

Waffled Germany 2 D Mark and Canada $ (side with rectangles)

Waffled Germany 2 D Mark and Canada $ (side with 1 mm-wide lines)

It is known that mammoth quantities of D Mark denominated coinage was recalled (98,500 'tonnes', per an estimate of the Germany Central Bank) in 2003-2004, to make way for the new Euro coins. These older German pieces were run through "decoining machines" (waffled), and sent out to be remelted.

It seems likely that a circulated Canadian coin slipped into the huge piles of German coins awaiting destruction, and was waffled in error.

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Please send any thoughts or comments to me at billsnyder2000@yahoo.com.