Paying your coffee with gold coin? It sound like a jokes but what if you accidentally paying your coffee with $100 gold coin? That's what happen to Kristine Friesen who may have bought the most expensive cup of coffee of all time. The Winnipeg resident and her husband thought nothing of their visit to a Tim Hortons location. She ordered tea and a bagel while Harry ordered coffee. The bill came to about $3, so Kristine reached into her purse, pulled out a toonie and a loonie and they sat down to enjoy their beverages.
Photo by Winnipegfreepress.com: Kristine Friesen (left) holds a shiny loonie while Tim Hortons worker Samantha Bell holds the gold coin.Kristine went to bed early that night but when she got up the next morning, she found out Harry had been up late looking high and low for a gold coin he had left with his change on the coffee table the day before. After retracing their steps, she realized with some horror that she had likely used the $100 gold coin at Tim Hortons.
"I thought the loonie looked kind of shiny but I didn't really think about it. It stuck in my mind through," she said.
The wayward coin nearly made it into general circulation as change for a subsequent customer but an alert cashier noticed it and brought it back to Greg Mikolajek, owner of the store. Mikolajek, a novice coin collector, regularly rounds up the non-Canadian money the shop brings in and buys it for himself. He uses the U.S. change on trips south of the border and he puts coins from other countries, such as Mexico, Cuba or even Europe, in a box.
At first, he thought the coin was a special edition loonie, like the one celebrating the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League. On closer inspection, he knew that couldn't be the case because the coin was minted in 1976. The Royal Canadian Mint didn't start producing loonies until 1987.
"It's the exact same size of a loonie. You'd never know the difference, it's just a little heavier," he said.
Mikolajek immediately thought about getting it back into the hands of the owner but realized that would be impossible unless somebody came forward on their own.
"If I said we have a lost $100 coin, we'd have 3,000 people here to collect it," he said.
Abe Nuss, manager of A.B. Coins & Collectables, said from the description of the coin, he believes it's worth about $350. He said the Mint produced two gold $100 coins in 1976, a 14-ounce version that's about the size of a loonie and a 22-ounce piece that's a little bigger and thicker than a nickel. The latter is worth about $700. The Mint continues to make the $100-gold coin to this day, although the gold content is lower than it used to be.
One of Mikolajek's employees came into the back of the store and asked if anybody had turned in a $100-coin. Mikolajek went to the front counter and found Harry Friesen brandishing a small protective case where the front plastic piece was compressed with an outline of a coin.
"It was the Cinderella story, the slipper fit," Mikolajek said. "I told him I had it at home but if he came back (Friday) he'd be a very happy guy."
Harry was ecstatic at the news and happy to have the coin back. He doesn't want to take the chance of it getting mixed up with regular change again so he's going to put in a safety deposit box.
Source: Winnipeg free press.com
