

The Canadian Press





TORONTO - The Royal Canadian Mint wants Canadians to know that the Queen does in fact have two faces.

The mint issued a statement this week saying although some toonies appear to have a different portrait of the Queen on them, that doesn't necessarily mean they are funny money.

The confusion appears to stem from a recent media report in Toronto that some fake toonies were circulating in the city.

The report said there were several ways to tell a fake coin from the real thing but pointed out that on the fakes, the Queen is not wearing her crown and her head appears larger than in older $2 coins.

Alex Reeves, communications manager for the mint, said that may have caused some people to suspect that any large-headed, crownless Queen signalled a fake.

"The comment was made that the large, uncrowned portrait was a fake coin and the smaller effigy was a genuine coin," Reeves said in an interview from Ottawa on Friday.

"That led people to believe that all coins with the large effigy were not genuine."

After receiving a number of inquiries from the public, the mint went as far as issuing a statement on the matter.

"Since 1996, Canadian two-dollar circulation coins have been produced with two different images of the Queen: a smaller crowned portrait (from 1996 to 2002) and a larger uncrowned portrait introduced in 2003 to update the image of Her Majesty on all Canadian coinage," it said.

"This last effigy has appeared on all Canadian circulation coins (one-cent, five-cent, 10-cent, 25-cent, 50-cent, one-dollar and two-dollar denominations) produced since June 2003."

"All circulation coins bearing these effigies are genuine and are to be accepted as legal tender in Canada," the statement said.

Reeves said Canadians should rest assured that the country's coinage system is "very secure and of a very high quality."

"Coin counterfeiting is extremely, extremely rare. It's very difficult to do. It's very labour-intensive -- it requires a great deal of expertise," he said.

"There's some real reasons why you don't see counterfeit coins in general. It's something that's very hard to do and that doesn't really happen to the same extent that bank notes are reproduced for counterfeit purposes."

He added that anyone with questions about currency can check the mint's website.





