Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1 Pound 1 Shilling
| Issuer | Merchants' Bank of Halifax, Hamilton Agency |
|---|---|
| Year | 1880 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 1 Pound 1 Shilling |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | At left, a vignette of a seated woman with distaff; at center, a combined sailing and steam ship vignette; at right, a vignette of the bank building. The note bears a red SPECIMEN overprint across the face, with CASHIER and PRESIDENT signature lines below the central text panel. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | ONE POUND ONE SHILLING STERLING / THE MERCHANTS BANK OF HALIFAX / AT BERMUDA / FIVE |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
The Merchants' Bank of Halifax was a Nova Scotia-chartered institution that expanded aggressively into central Canada during the 1870s, opening agencies across Ontario and Quebec. Hamilton was one of those agency points, and notes issued there carried the local agency designation rather than the Halifax head office imprint — a common practice for Canadian chartered banks operating branch networks under the 1871 Bank Act.
The denomination itself is the curiosity. One pound one shilling — a guinea — was an archaic unit even by 1880, a holdover from pre-Confederation accounting habits that lingered in Maritime banking culture long after Canada's decimal dollar system took formal effect in 1858. ABNC printed for numerous Canadian chartered banks during this period from their Manhattan facilities.