1 Dollar = 5 Shillings

The Commercial Bank of the Midland District was one of several Upper Canadian chartered banks operating under the currency duality that persisted in the Province of Canada well into the 1850s — pounds, shillings, and dollars coexisted legally, forcing issuers to denominate notes in both systems simultaneously. The dual inscription here is not decorative; it was a practical necessity for a merchant population that calculated in sterling while increasingly transacting in dollars.

The bank itself collapsed in 1887, decades after this series, following a crisis of bad railway loans. Notes from the 1846–1854 window predate Confederation by over twenty years and represent the chartered banking free-issue period before the Dominion imposed tighter federal controls on private note circulation.