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Zenmedic t1_isxphic wrote

Reply to comment by Carbon_Rod in TIL that in an effort to save $43.5, the Canadian Mint mailed the dies of the new $1 coin via a discount courier over using an armored car- which were promptly stolen and have never been found. This would lead to the adoption of the Loonie design as an emergency replacement. by Padgriffin

The fifty cent piece was expensive to produce, large and not considered to be a core part of Canadian coinage, so to save money, they haven't been minted in circulating quantities in quite some time. Still legal tender and in proof and collector sets, but it was decided that the cost wasn't worth the return for wide circulation.

Some of this actually had to do with the advent of the Vending Machine. Because Canadian and US coinage is so similar and basically interchangeable in the old mechanical machines, up until the loonie, you could make one mechanism that worked for 2 major markets. Big win. Add in parking meters and the likes, and the day to day things that relied on change now don't take a 50c coin, so it also became more obsolete through the way society uses coins.

Fast forward a few decades, and now the mint is penniless....

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