Royal Canadian Mint Unveils Glow-In-The-Dark Quarter

It seems like the folks at the Royal Canadian Mint are always thinking up of something radical. First there was the $1mm Canadian Dollar coin made from pure gold, then came the $50 and $100 polymer currency notes. If that was not enough, last month they finally did something the USA has been debating for years - stopped making the penny.

However, all these innovations pale in comparison to this latest one - A glow-in-the-dark quarter! What's even cooler, is that the glowing image is not some staid national park or museum, but the Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai, a 4-ton, 26-foot dinosaur, the fossils of which were discovered in Alberta, in 1972.

And, it gets better - While in normal light it appears to be a normal image of the dinosaur, in the dark only it's scaly skeleton shines back at you. The other side of the coin features the country's Head of State, Queen Elizabeth - She however, does not glow!

Made of Cupronickel, an alloy of copper mixed in with traces of nickel, iron and manganese, the skeleton can be best seen once the coin is exposed to sunlight or florescent light for between 30-60 seconds. Also, the mint is confident that the luminescence will not fade during the lifetime of the coin.

However, before you start rummaging through your mom's change purse frantically looking for the coin, be warned that these are a collector's item - Only 25,000 are available from the Mint's website and are priced at a steep $29.99 each!

But, given how cool they look and the fact that Canada may eliminate coins all together in the near future, it may be an investment worth making. Also, since the Mint plans on introducing additional ones featuring other glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs, you may soon be the proud owner of the world's most luminescent coin collection.

Resources: news.yahoo.com, cnet.com