Publications and Research
Periodicals
Bank of Canada Review
Winter 1998-1999
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Recent economic and financial developments (with update 23 February 1999) by Bank staff
Downward wage rigidity
Survey of the Canadian foreign exchange and derivatives markets
Conference summary: Information in financial asset prices
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Cover: 1858 Canadian pattern cent
Among the thousands of coins in the National Currency Collection, there are many pieces called patterns. These are pieces bearing proposed designs struck for trial purposes during the initial design stage. In the Canadian series, the earliest patterns were one- and twenty-cent pieces, prepared as part of the Province of Canada's first coinage in 1858.
The pattern 1858 cent was an innovation. Not only was it smaller and lighter than the British halfpennies, American large cents, and Canadian bank tokens then in circulation, but it was made of bronze—an alloy of copper, tin, and zinc—which was cheaper and more durable than the pure copper used in the coins of Great Britain and the United States. The rising price of copper and longstanding public antipathy, in both Britain and the States, to large cumbersome copper pieces were motivating factors behind the adoption of new designs in all three countries between 1857 and 1860.
The Canadian pattern was probably designed early in 1858 by L.C. Wyon, chief engraver at the Royal Mint in London where the order for Canada's first coinage was placed. This pattern is uniface, in other words, there is a design on only one side of the piece. The design is on the reverse and consists of a series of maple leaves and keys oriented as if radiating out from the coin's centre but arranged in a circle along the outer border of the coin. The design finally adopted differed from this one. There are no keys, and the maple leaves are turned about 90 degrees so that they snake along the outer edge of the coin.
The 1858 pattern cent is approximately the size of a twenty-five cent piece.
Photography by James Zagon.