Canadian Catch

HELLO FROM CANADA!

Doc and I arrived in Toronto late last night.  It might be difficult to find pennies in this country.  After Feb 4, 2013 the Canadian Mint no longer distributes pennies.  On that day they began melting down the 35 billion pennies in circulation.

Doc and I began today with a wonderful buffet breakfast and a server from Afghanistan.  He was awesome.  I gave him a JOY card.

Then Doc and I were off to the nearest Post Office.  We needed to get postage stamps. We found a small postal outpost within a convenience store, but they didn't carry postage stamps!

Of course we also needed to buy postcards. They were $1.11 each at the hotel.  We gotta do better than that!  Someone suggested going to China town to search for postcards there.

Doc and I were walking the streets and I was asking the Penny Angels for assistance in finding today's coin.

I spotted a man shoveling out the accumulated dirt in a drain.  Of course there were also leaves, cigarette butts, trash, etc.  I stopped to talk to him.  Tina:  "Thanks for doing that job.  I bet you have found coins in there". Worker:  "Yes, I found one a few minutes ago".  Tina:  "I'll look and see if I can find one."  Of course, I did find a coin - a dime.  Steve pulled the metal grate out of my way so I could get to the coin.  We had such fun together.




Off next to China Town in search of 100 postcards.  One place was charging $3.49 for prepaid postcards to send international!  That's a bit too pricey for me.  No thanks!  We went to the Post Office and bought 100 postcard stamps.  $1.20 + 15¢ tax to mail each postcard.  Wow!




In our walkabout we encountered thousands of people, but no other coins.  Finally Doc spotted a PENNY!  It was a 1976.  Only pennies minted in or after 1982 are considered "legally in circulation".  So does that make the one we found an illegal penny?

I was lamenting the lack of pennies and showing my PennyFinding shirt to a Chinese gentleman who sold us 70 postcards.  He barely spoke any English.  He searched for a few minutes and then presented me with two Canadian pennies as a token of goodwill.

Penny Finding is a sport which brings people together.