1991 Canadian Penny

Quick answers

Is the 1991 Canadian Penny rare?

No. 831 million were made, so circulated examples are worth face value.

How many 1991 Canadian pennies were made?

831,001,000 were struck for circulation.

What is the 1991 Canadian Penny made of?

Bronze (98% copper, 1.75% tin, 0.25% zinc). It weighs 2.5 g and measures 19.1 mm, with a 12-sided shape.

Is the 1991 Canadian Penny still legal tender?

Yes. The Royal Canadian Mint stopped distributing cents in 2013, but they remain legal tender. Cash payments are rounded to the nearest five cents, so most pennies now sit in jars or go to banks.

How to recognize it

The 1991 Canadian Penny is 12-sided, 19.1 mm across and bronze (98% copper, 1.75% tin, 0.25% zinc).

1991 Canadian Penny by the numbers

In mintage terms the 1991 Canadian Penny ranks 138th lowest of 151 Canadian cent dates and varieties from 1858 to 2012. The next scarcer is the 2008 Canadian Penny (787.6 million); the next more common is the 1984 Canadian Penny (838.2 million).

For scale, the most common is the 1981 Round Canadian Penny with 1.21 billion, about 1.5 times as many. The scarcest is the 1858 Canadian Penny with 421,000, 1974 times fewer than this one.

Compared with the dates around it, the 1991 output was 3.8 times the 1990 figure and 1.2 times the 1992 figure.

Over the 1990s the Mint produced 6.82 billion cents across 10 dates and varieties; the 1991 Canadian Penny accounts for 12% of that.

What to check on your 1991 Canadian Penny

• Check the color. Collectors describe copper cents as red, red-brown or brown; original red color is worth far more than toned or dull surfaces.
• Never clean it. Rubbing, polishing or dipping leaves fine scratches and an unnatural color that collectors spot at once.

Crowned and uncrowned portraits, 1990 to 2003

Dora de Pédery-Hunt's crowned portrait of the queen arrived in 1990, making her the first Canadian artist to design the royal effigy for Canada's coins. In 1992 cents carried the double date 1867-1992 for the 125th anniversary of Confederation. The 12-sided shape ended after 1996. From 1997 the cent was round again and made of zinc with a thin copper plating, 2.25 g, as the price of copper made a solid bronze coin too costly. Cents dated 2002 carry 1952-2002 for the Golden Jubilee of the queen's accession.

Copper-plated steel arrived on circulation cents dated 2002. These are marked with a small P for plated and weigh 2.35 g and for several years zinc and steel coins were made side by side. In 2003, fifty years after the coronation, Susanna Blunt's portrait replaced de Pédery-Hunt's. It shows the queen without a crown and it stayed on the cent until production ended. That gives 2003 four distinct types: crowned without a P, crowned with a P, uncrowned without a P and uncrowned with a P.

The useful checks here are the portrait, the shape and a magnet. A 12-sided coin is from 1996 or earlier. A P under the portrait means plated steel and a fridge magnet will pick those up while zinc cents ignore it. On 2003 coins, look at the queen's head first: a crown or bare hair tells you which portrait you have. Mintages are huge, apart from a few short runs in 2003, so almost every coin here is face value unless it is a variety in sharp condition.

Mintage chart

Specifications