Located at Dynamic Earth, the Big Nickel, a 30-foot replica of a 1951 Canadian nickel, commemorates Sudbury’s mining heritage and celebrates our community’s unique history.
An event celebrating the monument’s 60th birthday takes place July 22 at 10 a.m.
Want to share your love for Sudbury’s landmark? Join in a giant group photo and don’t forget to take your own selfie.
After the official ceremony, take advantage of 60 per cent off general admission to Dynamic Earth — open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Learn more online here.
The Big Nickel, created by the late Ted Szilva, was built in 1964. Szilva told us in an interview ahead of the monument’s 50th birthday in 2014 that he raised the $35,000 it cost to build the structure by selling miniature medallion versions of the monument.
Szilva came up with the idea of the moment as part of a contest for ideas to commemorate Canada’s centennial. He didn't win the contest, but went on to build what became known as the Big Nickel anyway.
The monument is based on the 1951 nickel, as that year was the 200th anniversary of the isolation of nickel as a mineral.
On the “heads” side is King George VI, and on the “tails,” a stylized nickel refinery with one large stack. However, it is not the Sudbury superstack (which was not completed until some years later).
“I thought it was a fitting piece to portray the wealth of Sudbury,” Szilva told us in 2014.
The Big Nickel is the largest coin in the world. It is about 64,607,747 times the size of a real Canadian nickel.
In the 1960s, the Big Nickel was joined by four other oversized monuments: The Fantasy Penny, The Lincoln Penny, The Kennedy Half Dollar and The Twenty Dollar Gold Piece. These other four monuments were all dismantled in 1984.
