Catalog
1 Dollar
| Issuer | Bank of British Columbia |
|---|---|
| Year | 1863 |
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| Printer | Wm. Brown & Co., London |
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| Obverse description | Upper left corner bears an oval portrait vignette of Queen Victoria in profile. The central vignette presents an allegorical scene with Britannia and a seated female figure atop a rocky outcrop, rendered in blue intaglio. The bank title arcs across the top on a scroll banner, with serial numbers and the promise-to-pay text in letterpress below, flanked by ornamental guilloche panels and a decorative dollar numeral cartouche at upper right. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Reverse is blank, with no printed design or lettering. |
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| Comments |
The Bank of British Columbia was chartered in London in 1862, just three years after the Fraser River gold rush had made the mainland colony a commercial priority for British capital. Its early notes were issued in Victoria and circulated across both Vancouver Island and the mainland territory — two distinct Crown colonies that wouldn't merge until 1866. A dollar-denominated note from 1863 is a telling detail: the bank operated simultaneously with sterling accounts, reflecting the hybrid monetary reality of a Pacific colony caught between British institutional loyalty and American commercial pressure from California.
Surviving examples from this issue are extremely rare. The bank itself was absorbed by the Canadian Bank of Commerce in 1901, and most early paper was never systematically preserved.