There’s two (or three) St. Catharines centennial coins – but which is which?

On a recent “Collectibles” Facebook page, someone had posted a St. Catharines centennial coin and dated it “February 1967.”

That instantly lead to falling down the rabbit hole of Google to see what more could be discovered and landing instantly on sites like eBay and Numista, a coin page.

On one side of the coin is the city crest and on the other side is a ship in Lock 3 with the Garden City Skyway in the background. On eBay, the going price range seemed to be between $20 and $30 per coin. However, a closer look revealed that it wasn’t celebrating St. Catharines’ 100th year but rather Canada’s.

On the side with the ship in Lock 3 with the Garden City Skyway as a background, it says, “The Garden Canada of Canada” across the top and “Gateway to Niagara Region” along the bottom. However, wrapped around the city crest on the other side were “St. Catharines”, “1867”, “1967” and finally at the bottom, “Canada’s Centennial.”

The problem is while St. Catharines has been around long before the country’s birth in one form or another, it wasn’t incorporated as a city until 1876. The city expanded when it annexed Grantham Township, Merritton, and Port Dalhousie. There was even some westward expansion, which divided the land between St. Catharines and Lincoln.

So with St. Catharines being the largest city in the Niagara Region and the sixth largest urban area in Ontario, was there a centennial coin issued in 1976, the actual 100th birthday of the city?

Well, it would appear there were two. (Coins are a bigger Google rabbit hole than you might imagine.)

These are the two sides of the 1976 St. Catharines Centennial dollar, worth $1 only in St. Catharines
with an expiry date of December 15, 1976.

One was the St. Catharines Centennial Dollar; the other was the St. Catharines Commemorative Dollar. Both were issued in 1976 and both seemed to come with conditions and – no joke – “best before” dates.

The St. Catharines Centennial Dollar was only worth a dollar in St. Catharines – nowhere else – and had to be used by December 15, 1976. That was literally stamped on the coin. It’s worth about $12 to $16 on eBay.

The St. Catharines Commemorative Dollar celebrates the city’s 100th birthday on one side and
the 50th birthday of the H.T. Church Branch (Ont. No. 24) of the Royal Canadian Legion on the
other side.

The St. Catharines Commemorative Dollar is a dual-purpose affair. On one side, it celebrates the centennial of St. Catharines, and on the other side, the 50th Anniversary of the H.T. Church Branch (Ont. No. 24) of the Royal Canadian Legion.

The city’s shield is on the other side with a beehive on top; the Royal Canadian Legion’s logo is on the flip side. It also had an expiry date – September 30, 1976 – but it’s less clear if this, too, was confined to city limits. Much tougher to find on eBay, we only saw one for $9.99.

So while the loonie didn’t come out until 1987 to replace the $1 bill, much like the Canadian silver dollar, it seems that St. Catharines had special coin dollars also being issued. Well, with a “limited time usage” clause, anyway.

What’s on the flip side of the top coin, celebrating
Canada’s centennial, not St. Catharines.