Banknotes And Shares

Today I start off with some of the banknotes that preceded a formal across the board money system in Canada. For the first decades of the country's existence, national currency printing for Canada was done at the Royal Mint in London before the Royal Canadian Mint was established in 1908.

The historical timeline for the Canadian economy continued along the wall, noting things like the dawn of Confederation, the founding of the Bank of Canada as an institution during the Depression, the Second World War and the baby boom years, and coming to the modern day with the era of credit cards and new currencies unveiled by an astronaut, Chris Hadfield, in orbit.

There are other items on display. This old fashioned scale caught my eye.

A display of currencies nearby took inflation and deflation into account. This particular note, highlighted on the screen, is a Vietnamese banknote worth 500 000 dong. That might sound like a lot, but it translates to about 30 Canadian dollars.

What to do with your money? Well, you could put your change in various forms of piggy banks, as seen in this display case.

You can buy something, and your money will find a place, however briefly, in a cashier till. It won't look anything like this old fashioned one, though.

Or perhaps you might buy shares in a company. Some older ones were on display here.

On a previous visit to the museum, I played a bit with this game, set up in this area. It's geared towards kids (who would no doubt play better than I did). The idea is to keep inflation down, by piloting your ship through what can best be described as a stargate system. On my previous visit, I pretty much obliterated the economy. Which qualifies me to replace Wilbur Ross, but that's beside the point.

I conclude with one last larger view of the interior space inside the Bank of Canada Museum. I hope you have enjoyed this tour. Tomorrow I will start showing you Winterlude.