Catalog
10 Dollars
| Issuer | Mechanics Bank, St. John's |
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| Year | 1837 |
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| Composition | Cotton paper |
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| Obverse description | The obverse is engraved in the early American territorial style, with denomination numerals "10" in each corner. At upper left, a classical female figure is seated in profile; at upper centre, a vignette of a steam locomotive with passenger carriages is set within a landscape, flanked at upper right by a vignette of a three-masted sailing vessel at sea. The centre bears the bank title in ornate script lettering above the promise-to-pay text, with a handwritten date of May 21, 1837, serial number, and two manuscript signatures of the Cashier and President below. |
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| Reverse description | The reverse is unprinted and plain, presenting a worn cotton-paper surface with no vignettes, text, or decorative elements, consistent with early Canadian colonial-era private banknote production practice. |
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| Comments |
The Mechanics Bank of St. John's, Newfoundland operated during a period when the island was still a British colony with no unified currency system — local private banks filled the gap, issuing their own notes in dollar denominations that floated uneasily against both Halifax currency and sterling. Whether this particular institution survived the banking panics of the late 1830s that wiped out several Maritime private banks is not firmly established in the surviving record.
Pick #1867 places this well outside the main catalog sequence, suggesting reclassification from an earlier numbering system. Newfoundland private bank paper from this decade is genuinely rare in any condition.