1 Dollar

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.