Canadian 2 dollars coin

It is a bi-metallic coin. How can I remove the inner core from the outer ring?

Used to be that if you froze it (think -35 or -40 C), then threw it onto concrete it’d break apart.

The copper coin is about the size of an american dime, so a Barrett Light 50 should do the trick if you’re a good enough shot.

I once had in my possession a toonie in which the centre part was a loose fit - I could easily pop it in and out with my thumb. I spent it though

In NO WAY do I condone destroying Canadian currency or taking it apart. BUT, were you to truly want to remove the center part of a two-dollar coin, try this:

Get the lid from a two-liter bottle. Lay it on a table so the open side is up. Lay the coin on top of that. Take a short piece of dowel that’s smaller than the center portion of the coin. Strike it with a hammer or anything else heavy that’s handy (I think I used … I mean … I have it on good authority that a stapler makes a good impromptu hammer.)

The center will pop out. This HAS worked. Try it at your own risk. :slight_smile:

You can’t do it anymore unless you break it. The first twoonies that came out had the center peice fit in really tight, basically just by friction. When people started popping them out, they were remodeled so that the inner peice has a little tab going around it, and the outer “washer” part has a groove into which the tab fits; so no matter what temperature/hammering techniques you try, the only way to separate the two peices is to bend the hell out of the coin or cut it. Now I can’t find any cites for this, so I can’t back it 100%; I did however visit the minting plant in Fort Saskatchewan in around '95, and heard it there.

The coin I had had the groove-and-tab design, so it’s not foolproof. I don’t know what violence was done to it before it fell into my hands, however.

When they first came out and there was all the fuss theat they fell apart, I recall seeing a ‘news’ (fluff) segment about how easy it was to pop them out. The ‘reporter’ simply placed it on a phone book and hammered at it with the earpiece of the phone receiver. I think it took him about six hits before he demonstrated just how easily it fell apart…

mmmiiikkkeee, I thought that the outer ring had a groove on the inside edge that the center got molded into when the stamping machine pressed the die into the center piece. Was there no groove in the outer ring at first?

OK, can I ask WHY you want to break apart a coin? Even canadian currency?

Yeah that might be right Cantara, there’s a groove and ring holding the peices together, but I’m not sure which peice has which structure. As I understood, even the first coins (barring defects) didn’t just “fall apart”. Ha ha, when you place a tiney disc on a flat surface and smash the hell out of it with some kind of club, or subject it to the freezer followed by a blowtorch, or stick it in a vise and have at it with a hammer and punch, you can’t claim it just fell apart. I think the redesigning was mostly to stop people from destroying the currency because it was “huhuhuh… you know, fun… huhuhuh”. Anyway, I haven’t heard of this problem anymore with twoonies (it is of course illegal).