No this isn’t about racist currency. It’s about cheapness and lies.
Recently Tim Hortons—Canada’s answer to Starbucks—began running a campaign advertising a new coin. Why would a coffee franchise advertise a coin? Because Tim Hortons designed the coin and got it passed as national legal tender and is now in circulation. The big deal about this coin is that it is according to the ads “the world’s first color coin”. It is a 25 cent piece (a quarter) that looks a lot like a previous quarter issued. It consists of a large maple leaf (surprise, surprise) with a banner below it with the word remember in both English and French. The center of the maple leaf is blocked out with a small circle within which is a red poppy outlined in black with a black center.
When I first heard about this I first thought “cool, a color coin” followed shortly by “what took so long?! it should be really easy to color the metal allowing all kinds of cool color coins” Then there was the whole issue about how Canada was the first to issue a color coin. That would normally be a reason for national pride (for those who are into that sort of thing), and no doubt it did fill some with a warm glow.
Unfortunately that glow was short lived. Upon closer inspection it turns out that the coin is not in fact color but rather colorED. That is, the red and black are merely paint. What’s worse is that the poppy is barely even engraved at all, there is a very light outline of the poppy in the smooth circle while it is the paint that makes it recognizable at all.
Naturally this is causing quite a bit of a stir. First of all it obviously does not count as a color coin and thus Canada’s status as the first is stripped. Second it is quite an embarrassment, as Jimmy would say I mean come on! Finally and arguably most importantly, it is like a slap in the face to the very veterans whom it is supposed to honor. They are up in arms about this and are trying to nag to whomever they can to complain and have this dealt with… but how? What could make up for this enormous faux pas?
Bah! Canada and Tim Hortons are in a lot of hot water now. On the bright side they can now make a whole bunch of coffee.