Catalog
1 Dollar
| Issuer | Commercial Bank of Canada |
|---|---|
| Year | 1860 |
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| Currency | Dollar (1858-date) |
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| Obverse description | Green intaglio-printed note with the bank title 'COMMERCIAL BANK OF CANADA' arched across the upper portion. The central vignette presents a train in motion before an industrial townscape, flanked on the left by a standing Indigenous figure and on the right by a circular portrait vignette of a seated female allegorical figure. The denomination '1' appears in large numeral at upper right, with the promise to pay text and payable at Kingston dated 2nd January 1860 inscribed across the lower centre field. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | COMMERCIAL BANK OF CANADA CAPITAL $4,000,000. American Bank Note Company Canada Bank Note Printing Plant Will Pay ONE DOLLAR to Bearer KINGSTON 2nd Jany 1860 INCORPORATED BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT - PROVINCE OF CANADA ONE BROCKVILLE |
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| Comments |
The Commercial Bank of Canada was chartered in Kingston, Ontario, and by 1860 was one of the more solvent of the pre-Confederation chartered banks — a distinction that would not last. It failed in 1868, one of several Upper Canadian institutions brought down by overextension and the collapse of the Bank of Upper Canada two years earlier, which triggered a regional credit crisis severe enough to shake public confidence in chartered banking across the province.
The American Bank Note Company had only recently formed through the 1858 merger of several competing New York security printers. This note falls among their earliest Canadian commissions under the consolidated imprint.