Money is endlessly fascinating, if you ask me. For my whole life, I've picked up the pennies from the street and examined the date to see how old they were. I've collected them and rolled them around in my hands, feeling their weight and studying the sounds of the metallic clunks as they bang against each other.
I've enjoyed this so much that my appreciation transcends borders. I love the way money changes around the world: what countries name their currencies, what they care about enough to put on their bills, and how much attention they put into their security features. Honestly, I've put a lot of thought into these things.
Those security features are important because if people can't trust their country's money then no one will trust the country.
That's why it's so great that the Musée Héritage Museum has its new exhibit on display. In the Money is a great title because it's about all of the work and all of the importance in our money. It isn't simply the financial importance of our currency. There are art and design elements – political elements too – in addition to the ever-growing need for increased security features.
Money makes the world go around indeed, and in turn, all the world is involved in making money. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who has an interest in this subject. Shari Strachan, director of the museum, agrees.
"There are a lot of people who are fascinated with coins and where they came from and just the whole idea that money has a worth beside the fact that it's silver or copper or whatever, and that history that it used to have to be a precious metal to have its value. Some are interested in the bills themselves. Some are fascinated with the changes in the pictures over time and what's on a bill."
All about the Wilfrids
In the Money is a travelling exhibit that comes from the Bank of Canada's Currency Museum, a place that sounds like heaven to all money-loving history nuts.
Enrica Schwilden, marketing and communications manager at the museum, said that the show is meant to help explain to Canadians that one of the Bank of Canada's key roles is to ensure the highest level of confidence in our national currency. It also does a lot to help explain the importance of why our paper money is much less paper and far more durable than it used to be.
"It is an opportunity to showcase our Polymer note series and to educate the public on how important and easy it is to check bank notes for counterfeits. Visitors will also be able to see the latest developments in bank note technology, including Canada's Polymer note series."
As the exhibition travels across the country, it is an outreach program to give as many Canadians the opportunity to also see artifacts from the National Currency Collection. The timing works out well since the museum is closed for renovations at the Bank of Canada.
If people can't come to the museum, she continued, then they will bring the museum to the people.
It brings with it a series of displays that demonstrate the history of money across the world from the mulberry-based paper money of Ming Dynasty China all the way up to our modern half-plastic see through bills. Some displays demonstrate the plethora of security devices like colour change patches, watermarks, embedded threads, microprint and even stardust, which sounds like something far too wonderful for what it actually is: a thread that weaves in and out of the topside of the paper.
Visitors can check out a display that even lets you test out how durable our national currency is. When I visited last week, I registered the 462,105th time that a $5 note had been touched, the 11,744th time that another had been folded, and the 25,377th time that another had been rubbed with a piece of denim to simulate someone stuffing a bill in their pants pocket.
Canada, as it turns out, does a fine job of making money.
"We actually make money on making money in Canada," Strachan noted, adding that along with Australia, we lead the world in currency production.
"Of course, Canada was one of the first to put colour on coins and things like that. There's loonies and toonies in North America. The Mexicans have lots of coins," she said."
Extra value
The Musée added in some local connections to this exhibit including artifacts from its own collection. There's an old adding machine, money belts, plus an item that commemorated Pope John Paul II's historic 1984 visit to Alberta. It was a significant moment in the province's history, which included a mass at Namao that was attended by approximately 125,000 people.
If anyone has any kind of commemorative coin for the Rainmaker Rodeo or any significant community event from St. Albert's past, Strachan wouldn't mind getting a phone call about it.
Some of the museum staffers are even putting some of their personal items out for all to see.
"We all started talking about piggy banks one day and how we used to keep our money. We thought, 'you know what? Let's just put them on display,'' Strachan continued.
There will also be a collection of some of the international currency that museum staffers have brought home from abroad over the years.
"You bring back coins and bills from different places that people have been over the years, some that don't exist any more because there's now the Euro or something like that. We're going to compare money: how it looks, the sizes, and the denominations from all over the world, whatever we can put together."
Staff recently also added Banque d'Hochelaga bills (OK, bill reprints) to the exhibit.
"I don't think a lot of people know or remember what the origin of the charter banks were. Banks were actually chartered to print their own money at one time in Canada. The Banque d'Hochelaga actually printed Banque d'Hochelaga bills."
"We put that out along with the picture of our own little Banque d'Hochelaga," she said, referring to the bank that still stands in our historic downtown but is now the home of the Art Gallery of St. Albert.
"We're trying to make some connections with what would have happened across Canada to what would have affected people here in St. Albert, not just in regard to the mint but what banks were doing but also with coins and bills."
In the Money runs until Aug. 30. The Musée Héritage Museum is located in St. Albert Place, 5 St. Anne Street.
For more information, please call 780-459-1528 or visit www.muséehéritage.ca.
