Bank note history
The issue of the new ten-dollar bill to begin a new series in Canadian Currency brought me to think about dedicating an article to Canadian Currency history.
During colonial times, that is in the 16th and 17th century, coins were used in North America from different countries: Spain, England, France, Portugal... There was an attempt to create currency by having playing cards, signed by the Governor of New France, to be considered money in the Colony but that didn't last much as currency was in, pretty much, chaos.
It isn't until the 1820s that money was made in Canada as the Montreal Bank printed up bank notes in dollars following influence by the American currency (who was inspired by the ancient Spanish currency, also called Dollar) although later notes showed both its worth in dollars and shillings, until the 1850s when money was made in decimal currency (i.e. Dollars and cents) and not until a decade later that government banks printed bank notes.
I will look at individual bank note series from 1935 to now. 1935 is the year when the Bank of Canada started printing the money.
1935 Each bill was a different colour and had on the front, a member of the royal family, and on the back a natural/cultural "allegory". The one dollar bill was green with a portrait of King George V on the front and "Agriculture" on the back; 2$: blue with portrait of Queen Mary (wife of king) and "Transportation"; 5$: orange, Edward, Prince of Wales and "Electric Power"; 10$: purple with Princess Mary and "Harvest"; 20$: pink with Princess Elizabeth (now Elizabeth II) and "Agriculture"; 25$: royal purple with King George V and Queen Mary and Windsor Castle; 50$: red-brown with Prince Albert, Duke of York (later King George VI) and "Modern Inventions"; 100$: brown with Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester and "Commerce and Industry", 500$: sepia with John A. MacDonald and "Fertility" and finally 1000$: olive with Wilfrid Laurier and "Security". The 25$ was issues as a celebration of King George V's silver jubilee. The 500$ bill was used previously but was stopped after these series. Bills were all unilingual although there were different prints in English and in French.
1937 Only two years after first series, they had to redo another for many reasons, one, they were forced to make bills bilingual and secondly King George V had died and his son Edward VIII had abdicated so George VI was now King (formerly Prince Albert). The colours remained similar, as did the "allegories" yet there were few changes (such as which bill they were on). More important changes was that the King was put on all bills except the 100$ and 1000$ and there was no 25$ or 500$ bills and the format of the bill was also different. 1$: green with King and "Agriculture"; 2$: red-brown with King and "Harvest"; 5$: blue with King and "Electric power"; 10$: purple with King and "Transportation"; 20$: olive with king and "Fertility"; 50$: orange with King and "Modern inventions"; 100$: brown with John A. Macdonald and "Commerce and industry" and finally the 500$: pink with Wilfrid Laurier and "Security".
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