10 Dollars

The Colonial Bank of Canada was a short-lived institution — chartered in 1856 under the Province of Canada, it never achieved the foothold its promoters anticipated and was absorbed before Confederation reshaped the banking landscape entirely. Notes from this issuer are genuinely rare precisely because so few ever entered meaningful circulation; the bank's operational life was too brief to distribute its paper widely.

The American Bank Note Company imprint dates this to the New York firm's early consolidated period, following the 1858 merger of several competing security printers. ABNC work from this window is identifiable by its transitional engraving style — the merger brought together plate craftsmen from previously rival shops, and consistency across the new firm's output took several years to settle.