With it or without it?
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Conspiracy[controversial] what are your thoughts?
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Conspiracy[controversial] what are your thoughts?Posted:
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A bit of a hot topic but I want to bring the question to TTG.. what do you think of the big nickel located in sudbury ontario? is this one of those monuments you say 'ehh..' or get fired up over.
The Big Nickel is a nine-metre (30 ft) replica of a 1951 Canadian nickel, located at the grounds of the Dynamic Earth science museum in Greater Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, and is the world's largest depiction of a coin. The twelve-sided nickel is located on a small hill overlooking the intersection of Municipal Road 55 and Big Nickel Drive at the westernmost end of the Gatchell neighbourhood. The Big Nickel celebrated its 45th anniversary on July 22, 2009 with a "birthday party" on the grounds of Dynamic Earth (Ontario), including a display of coins from Science North's Inco Coin Collection. The idea for the Big Nickel began in 1963 when Ted Szilva, at the time a 28-year-old City of Sudbury fireman, read in the Sudbury Star of a contest, sponsored by the Sudbury Canada Centennial Committee (Maurice Lacourciere, Chairman), asking Sudbury residents how the City should celebrate the upcoming Canadian Centennial. Szilva put forward the suggestion for a major tourist attraction featuring a giant replica of a five-cent coin, an underground mine and a mining science centre. Szilva's idea was rejected because the committee felt that "it did not have sufficient use for the citizens of Sudbury as such". By this time, Szilva had independently researched his idea, and had concluded that it could indeed be a viable and worthwhile project. He began to make this dream a reality by scouting out the highest hills in Sudbury to find the best location. On December 11, 1963, he purchased 17.5 acres (7.1 ha) of land from Walter Holdich for $1,000.00 with a $25.00 down payment. The land was ideal because of its unique location between Sudbury and Copper Cliff. To the west, the large hill provided a sensational view of the INCO mining and smelting complex, including the nightly slag dump, while to the east one had a beautiful view of the city of Sudbury. After the land was acquired, the city refused to give Szilva the building permit for the monument, or a road allowance for access to the landlocked property, so he visited the president of INCO, John Pigott, and requested a lease for 4 acres (1.6 ha) of adjacent INCO land in Copper Cliff. This acquisition would ensure that Szilva would have access to his land. INCO did lease the requested land, for 99 years at $1.00 per year. Eventually he bought the leased land from INCO, in addition to another 15 acres (61,000 m2). Szilva contracted a firm to build the Big Nickel road, and Pioneer Construction paved the new road. The Big Nickel was eventually built on the crest of the hill, three feet outside of the city of Sudbury limits in Copper Cliff Ontario, which did not require a building permit. Not yet financially secure, Szilva needed investors in order to make the dream a reality. Three men from Sudbury indicated that they would invest, but when the time came, they refused to put any money into Szilva's new company, Nickel Monument Development Ltd. Szilva eventually owned 99.9% of the shares of the company. In order to raise the money for the development of the project, Szilva had a series of commemorative coins struck which represented each of the monuments to be erected at the park. To have worldwide appeal, he conceived the idea for a numismatic park and called it the Canadian Centennial Numismatic Park. The Big Nickel would be its centrepiece. The uniqueness of this park appealed to the numismatists worldwide, who purchased the medallions in order to support the construction and development of the park. One such medallion package, mailed out to purchasers in 1964 from Nickel Monument Development contained three coins and a descriptive project brochure. Two of the coins were identical silver-dollar-sized 0.999 silver content Kennedy commemorative coins. The third was a silver dollar sized copper-coloured Kennedy commemorative coin. All three coins were identically marked on the obverse with a Kennedy profile above the words 'In God We Trust, 1964' surrounded by 'Canadian Centennial Numismatic Park, Sudbury, Canada'. On the reverse, each was marked with an eternal flame above the words 'And so let the word go forth that the torch has been lit,' and the words 'John Fitzgerald Kennedy 1917.1963'. The brochure discussed the medallions, the park ('Canada's Most Unique Tourist Attraction--Canadian Centennial Numismatic Park'), other fundraising ideas, and planned future attractions. In December 1963 Szilva had earned enough funds through mail-order sales to proceed with the first phase of the proposed development. He chose the 1951 five-cent piece and "coined" the phrase "The Big Nickel". Artist Steve Trenka designed the 1951 five-cent piece. His rendition of a nickel refinery was not based on any actual complex, though some believed it to be the INCO refinery in Sudbury. In 1951 the INCO smelter had three stacks, not one (unlike the five-cent piece) and the Inco Superstack which supposedly appeared in the centre of the buildings, was not erected until 1971. It would seem that The Big Nickel was the cause of these rumours, because of the similarity of its design to the five-cent coin and its proximity to the INCO complex. The 1951 design was chosen for the Big Nickel since it marked the bicentennial of the chemical isolation of nickel by the Swedish chemist Baron Axel Frederic Cronstedt. This metal, of course, played a large role in the establishment of Sudbury as a mining town. Before 1751, the element now known as nickel played havoc with refiners. Thought to be an alloy of copper, German miners coined the term, "Kupfernickel" or "Old Nick's Copper". This "Devil's Copper" could not be extracted with the technology of the time. Cronstedt, however, was able to prove that the trouble refiners faced was due to an unknown element which he named nickel. Szilva ultimately chose the 1951 Canadian nickel, minted by the Royal Canadian Mint in 1951, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the isolation of nickel as a metal, to show where Sudbury's wealth came from, and to be a lasting tribute to the men and women who mined and processed the minerals in the Sudbury Basin. In short, the nickel was intended to exhibit Sudbury's pride to the whole world. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/The_Big_Nickel%2C_Sudbury%2C_Ontario%2C_March_2020.jpg/300px-The_Big_Nickel%2C_Sudbury%2C_Ontario%2C_March_2020.jpg |
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Team073 (12-13-2022)
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| Lol same as the above 2.. post a picture of this "big nickel" |
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Johnny wrote https://i.imgur.com/52mNZoy.jpg +1 |
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