The Royal Canadian Mint has planned to issue four 25-cent coins that glow-in-the-dark. The coin shown above is the first in a 4-coin Prehistoric Creature glow-in-the-dark (photo-luminescent) series! Not only that, I think this might be the first glow-in-the-dark coin minted by any official mint. I am aware of glowing novelty coins and challenge coins but do not recall any glowing coins showing up as legal tender.
So they say with just 30-60 seconds of sunlight, if you take your new dinosaur coin into a dark area you will end up with:
The dinosaur is a Pachyrhinosaurus Lakustai. As I understand it, these dinos roamed in what is now Canada. The dinosaur is on the reverse of the coin while Queen Elizabeth resides on the front of the coin (sorry, no glowing skeleton of the queen). I am a bit skeptical about how well the coin will actually glow but I'm also excited to see what it will look like.
The new quarter won't be for sale until the 25th of May and only 25,000 were minted. At a price of $29.95 these are likely to go quick, especially considering the amount of news coverage being given to these coins.
Spec-wise this is your standard 35mm cupronickel coin weight 12.61 grams. Julius T. Csotonyi is the designer for the Pacyrhinosaurus Lakustai reverse and Susanna Blunt is the artist credited with the obverse design.
So who is planning to snag one of these coins? On the 25th of May they will be available on the mint's website here: dinosaur coin.
