The only thing special about this quarter is that it is a good collectors item. I have a couple of those quarters at home. Does this mean I am being spy on? Hahahahaha.... When the poppy quarters came out, I had to line up at Tim Hortons in order to get those poppy quarters.
If U.S. government has time to verify a poppy quarter, it should have plenty of time to do things to protect/save our environment.
--------------------------------------------------------(News from Toronto Star)
Mysterious spy coin simply poppycock
Specially minted quarter sparked false international espionage alert in U.S.
May 08, 2007 04:30 AM
Tim Harper
WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON–They jam parking meters, are spit out by pop machines and tossed back by insulted news vendors.
But at least the inglorious history of the sadsack Canadian coin south of the border no longer includes espionage allegations, now that the great "poppy quarter" spy caper has been unmasked as poppycock.
It turns out that the strange coin found in the cup holder of the Canadian car a U.S. defence contractor rented was, well, a quarter – with a red poppy inlay and a minting date of 2004.
Six of them would have bought him a large double-double at Tim Hortons, which distributed the special coins, and he would have been handed back something strange called a nickel.
Instead, the ominous-looking coin gave rise to an even stranger spy tale in this country – with the U.S. Defense Security Service warning that mysterious coins with radio transmitters appeared to have been planted on American army contractors as they travelled through Canada during 2005 and 2006.
Turns out the American officials were befuddled by protective coatings on the coin, which had been put in place to try to keep the red colour from smudging, something that marred the early 2004 printings of the coin, leaving on some a red blotch on the face of the Queen on the reverse side.
One contractor marvelled that the coin didn't seem to have a power source, but was filled with some sort of "nano-technology."
Another wondered how those things got into his pockets after he had put his loose change in a secure plastic bag.
"And you wonder why our war effort isn't going too well," said John Pike, a security and military analyst at GlobalSecurity.org.
The Canadian embassy tried to remain diplomatic.
"We knew loose lips sink ships, but loose change ... ?" said spokesperson Bernard Etzinger.
The mystery of the Canadian coins with the radio transmitters had haunted cyberspace for four months until it was resolved by the Associated Press yesterday.
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