Convergence, 50¢ Coins, and my Aching Wrist.

[mbarrick]

First the good news, Siobhan has signed up on the Gothic BC forum to provide assistance for the bid. She's in charge of managing the bids this time around so she has to be non-partisan, but she's already provided invaluable information. We should have a good handle on venues by the end of the week and I can then move ahead with the official hotel. Brigitta and Minori are on board for the fashion show. I don't want to go into too many details since the competition is going to be tough, but things are looking like we are going to have one monsterously good bid in place in time for the vote.

Once again I've tried to get my hands on a couple rolls of 50¢ pieces to no avail. This Friday is Purim and I was reading about the whole ½ shekel alms for the poor thing and it occurred to me that if ever there was going to be a time when the banks might have a few 50¢ coins in stock, this would be it. Nope. I went into the main branch of the Royal Bank (which incidentally was a distribution partner for the Royal Jubilee 50¢ memorial coin just three years ago) and got the same blank stare I always get when I ask for a roll of 50¢ pieces. The procedure, without fail, is always the same:

1. I ask for a roll or two of 50¢ coins.
2. The teller looks at me like I just landed from Mars.
3. I explain that while they are not in common use, they are a regular mintage circulation coin.
4. The teller then goes to the cash cage and the person in the cash cage then looks out at me like I just landed from Mars.
5. The teller then returns to tell me that they don't have any.
6. I ask to order some.
7. The teller returns to the cash cage and has a conversation with the person in the cage. More Martian glances are shot my way.
8. The teller then returns to me and says, no, they can't order them.
9. I then explain that, yes, you can. There are a circulation coin, you can get them the same as any other circulation coin, even though they aren't on the rolled coin order form; I know, I used to be a teller and I used to order them for myself.
10. The teller then takes my number and promises to call me after speaking to someone.
11. I go away, knowing I'll not get called and let the whole thing slide for another year or two until it strikes my fancy to try again.

Meanwhile, the new mouse at home is working. My wrist is getting a much needed rest, the problem being that now that things are relaxing I'm getting all the aches that always accompany recovering from too much mousing. The tendonitis in my elbow always flares up and at times can be ridiculously painful - imagine a wire being inserted into your elbow and jammed up your arm to your shoulder blade, cooled beyond freezing so the flesh inside your arm sticks to it and then it's randomly slid back and forth. This is a chronic problem I aquired as a dumb-ass 12-year old so I usually don't bother complaining about it. It's not going to ever go away completely, and no one needs to hear me whine about it all the time.

Meanwhile switching to my left hand at work is beginning to aggrevate the tendonitis in my left arm. This is why the new mouse has me jazzed - switching to my left hand at work and at home usually aggrivates my left arm to a point that exceeds the pain in my right arm well before my right arm is really recovered. Now I get to rest my left arm at home, yet still allow my right to recover. It's a great big experiment in pain management and I am my own guinea pig.

Right now it all hurts in a way that's hard to explain, but I know from experience that it is a step on the road to improvement. If I was the sort to take care of myself when I should rather than after it is a problem, I wouldn't have this problem in the first place. I guess the dumb-ass twelve year old that got me in the painful mess in the first place hasn't completely grown up ;-)

Comments

[dream-king.livejournal.com]

Purim is Thursday night Friday.

If you need any help at all putting together a bid I would be more than happy to help.

[opulence-9.livejournal.com]

I gave ryan my 50 cent coin for his birthday before we went out :)
we still have it

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

Duh, I knew that. I don't know why I typed Saturday. Not exactly like there was a wall around Vancouver in ancient times... (and why the hell do I even know this stuff at all?). Regardless, have a fun day.

I sent you the password for the C12 section in a personal message of the GBC forum. All the nuts and bolts stuff is happening there.

50c

[sovietnimrod.livejournal.com]

My mom used to work for CIBC and once told me that after the dollar coin became general circulation in 1986 or 1987, the 50c coins produced since then were pretty much minted only for collector sets - usually only 500,000 (about one-quarter of their 'regular' minatge in pre-loonie days) or so are produced and in some recent years none have been produced. I don't believe the chartered banks consider them now as regular coinage despite whatever the Royal Canadian mint might say. Even in pre-loonie days, the banks were not obliged to stock them although they did just for the sake of it.

Re: 50c

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

This could be the problem. I just looked up the mintage volume (http://www.mint.ca/en/collectors_corner/circulation/mintages_50.htm) and it seems like this is the answer... except for the 14,440,000 jubilee coins minted for ciculation in 2002.

Re: 50c

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

Hrm... add to that the mintage numbers are clearly wrong. According to the mint there were no 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, or 2001 loonies and no 1997 or 1998 quarters.

[saturnina.livejournal.com]

I'm interested in helping with the C12 stuff too! I keep forgetting to mention it.

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

OK, I've sent you the password as a personal message in the forum. Just sign in and use the link near the top right of the page to get at your message centre. Right now I've been focussed on the big issues of getting the venues and hotels sorted out, but we need more daytime events before the bid needs to go up in May.

Re: 50¢

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

I've looked into this further. The 50¢ coin is included in the Royal Canadian Mint Act as a circulation coin. The mint produces and distributes the coins according to demand like any other circulation coin. The only reason mintages are lower now is because fewer people are requesting them. There are piles of these things waiting in mint distribution centres for a non-existant demand because ignorant tellers don't know they exist and don't know how to deal with a coin order that includes a denominiation that someone forgot to put on the order form that the bank produces.