Canadian money is already a little confusing for Americans, what with the loonies, the toonies, and those pennies that look just like American pennies. Now, though, Canada is overhauling its entire monetary system by replacing that stuff with new coins featuring iconic characters and scenes from the original Star Trek series, including one shaped like the iconic Starfleet insignia. Alright, so Canada isn’t really replacing all of its money with Star Trek money, but it has found a way to squeeze some easy loonies out of Trek nerds.
This comes from Nerdist, which reports that the Canadian Mint is introducing the coins as a celebration of Star Trek’s 50th anniversary. All of them are legal tender, like most commemorative coins, but the clever twist is that some of them are being sold for way more than they’re worth. The colored coins with the crew members are worth 20 Canadian dollars and are being sold in packs of four for a little more than that, but a 20-dollar coin with the Enterprise on it is being sold for over 100 Canadian dollars. Then there’s the pure gold Starfleet coin, which is worth $200 but was being sold for about $1,300 (they are, of course, already sold out).
Hopefully, this project will end up being so successful that Canada really does replace all of its currency with Star Trek money, and then America can follow its lead by introducing Star Wars money.