Spare Some Change?

The surprise explanation behind the U.S. government's sensational but false warnings about mysterious Canadian spy coins is the harmless "poppy quarter," the world's first colorized coin, The Associated Press has learned.

Yes, that’s right – we did it! First dual metal coin, the first colourized coin, and the first to cock our heads to the side with raised eyebrows at the highly amusing tale that was to follow…

The odd-looking coins with a bright red flower were so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. Army contractors traveling in Canada they filed confidential espionage accounts about them.

Odd-looking coins? Our monopoly-tribute paper bills didn’t surprise you? We only have a different colour for every denomination. Your wallets should have looked like a confetti bomb at a junior high prom night, but the coins were what struck you?!?!

Here’s a juicy little tidbit for your confidential espionage accounts for your files boys…*psst*…come closer…

Our money is almost worth more than yours.

The worried contractors described the coins as "anomalous" and "filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology," according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP.

Filled with something? It’s painted on top of the coin. The reports make it sound as though these boys expected to find chocolate under the shiny wrapper. Besides, how the hell do you figure we are sophisticated enough for nano-tech anything when we have trouble just keeping our military sufficiently armed with something other than hockey sticks?

The silver-coloured 25-cent piece features the red image of a poppy, Canada's flower of remembrance, inlaid over a maple leaf. The unorthodox quarter is identical to the coins pictured and described as suspicious in the contractors' accounts. The supposed nano-technology actually was a conventional protective coating the Royal Canadian Mint applied to prevent the poppy's red color from rubbing off. The mint produced nearly 30 million such quarters in 2004 commemorating Canada's 117,000 war dead.

We honour our war dead and our neighbours find it “suspicious”?. We have everything form birds to bears to beavers on our coins, and then ‘change’ it up by tossing an epic schooner on one just for giggles. If we had chosen not to put a sealant on the coin, the intense red dye would have rubbed off onto their hands and then they would have thought that we were trying to spread some highly infectious disease or some other such nonsense.

Although…it almost would have been worth it to see the looks on their faces after visiting the loo with that dye on their dripper-grippers.

"It did not appear to be electronic (analog) in nature or have a power source," wrote one U.S. contractor, who discovered the coin in the cup holder of a rental car. "Under high power microscope, it appeared to be complex consisting of several layers of clear, but different material, with a wire like mesh suspended on top."

……did he just admit that they spend money on analysing money? I’m sorry, but did I just wander through the titanium-plated, jewel-laden revolving doors of the International Bank of Irony?

The confidential accounts led to a sensational warning from the Defense Security Service, an agency of the Defense Department, that mysterious coins with radio frequency transmitters were found planted on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors traveled through Canada.

The DSS is part of the DD?!?! Really?!?! They probably just hang out because they share a first name. And it couldn’t be all that sensational – the rest of the country never heard about it until now.

Although I do like how they assume everything is “planted” on them…like radio transmitters, secret spy satellites, swift kicks in the arse…yeah…”planted”…

One contractor believed someone had placed two of the quarters in an outer coat pocket after the contractor had emptied the pocket hours earlier. "Coat pockets were empty that morning and I was keeping all of my coins in a plastic bag in my inner coat pocket," the contractor wrote.

This man openly admits to carrying his change purse in a freezer-bag?! Who would put that on record?! Why wouldn’t you say something like “well I had already fed all my quarters into the condom dispenser in the bathroom of the “Slippery Peel” on Radisson when I stuck my hand in my pocket…"

Meanwhile, in Canada, senior intelligence officials expressed annoyance with the American spy-coin warnings as they tried to learn more about the oddball claims.

...*gasp*…you’re kidding!

Intelligence and technology experts were flabbergasted over the warning when it was first publicized earlier this year. The warning suggested that such transmitters could be used surreptitiously to track the movements of people carrying the coins. "I thought the whole thing was preposterous, to think you could tag an individual with a coin and think they wouldn't give it away or spend it," said H. Keith Melton, a leading intelligence historian.

Hey now…watch it…that almost sounded like logic. We don’t need any of your “Melton mind-games” around these parts. We'll have you know we like our flabber to be gasted.

A numismatist consulted by the AP, Dennis Pike of Canadian Coin & Currency near Toronto, quickly matched a grainy image and physical descriptions of the suspect coins in the contractors' confidential accounts to the 25-cent poppy piece.

Numismatist – collector and one who studies coins. Carry on.

"It's not uncommon at all," Pike said. He added that the coin's protective coating glows peculiarly under ultraviolet light. "That may have been a little bit suspicious," he said.

Spectacular – not only does are money look like some metallic collection of National Geographic…but now it glows in the dark! Drunken revellers everywhere will bask in the glory that is our gleaming Canadian…um…coins.

We like our monopoly money thank you very much. We enjoy being able to discern how much money we are handing over while being held in the fierce and molesting grip of snow blindness. In fact, how do you think we come up with the idea? We have little better to do during the long winter months except keep warm by any means necessary, consume copious amounts of alcoholic beverage and devise the next dazzling array of monetary artwork.

Various bills of multihued shades, dual metal coins with names that condemn us to the giggles and ridicule of national banks and financial institutions across the globe.

Strangely though, we seem to like the attention – many people collect our currency as others would collect stamps or baseball cards. We enjoy knowing that our money is easily recognizable to others around the world and that it stands out as being unique – just like the country it comes from.