Catalog
2 Dollars / Piastres
| Issuer | Bank of Lower Canada |
|---|---|
| Year | 1839-1851 |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | The obverse is engraved in a classical early Victorian style, centred on the Royal Arms of the United Kingdom flanked by two oval medallions each bearing a large numeral '2'. To the left, a small pastoral vignette appears alongside bold guilloche panels bearing the word 'DEUX' vertically and 'TWO' in a lower panel. To the right, a standing allegorical female figure holding a staff and shield is rendered in fine intaglio. The bank title 'Bank of Lower Canada' is inscribed in prominent script below the central vignette, with bilingual text reading 'A demande Payé... Deux Piastres à l'ordre de... à Quebec' beneath. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | LOWER CANADA TWO DOLLARS TWO DOLLARS TWO DOLLARS Bank of Lower Canada DEUX A demande Payé Deux Piastres à l'ordre de à Quebec TWO DEUX |
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| Comments |
The Bank of Lower Canada was chartered in 1832 but had a troubled existence almost from the start — its operations were entangled in the political upheaval surrounding the Rebellions of 1837–38, and the bank never achieved the stability of contemporaries like the Bank of Montreal. That instability is directly reflected in the survival rate of its paper. Notes from this issuer are genuinely rare, and the long nominal date span of 1839–1851 masks the likelihood that active issuance was concentrated in a much shorter window.
The dual denomination — dollars and piastres — reflects the practical bilingual commerce of the St. Lawrence valley, where both English mercantile and French Canadian transactional conventions had to be accommodated on the same instrument.