The Bank of Upper Canada was already in serious trouble by 1861 — chronic mismanagement and overexposure to bad railway loans had been draining its reserves for years, and it would collapse entirely in 1866, making this a late-period note from a failing institution. Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Edson were the dominant security printers for Canadian chartered banks at the time, and their New York shop produced the vast majority of Ontario bank paper in this period.
Notes from the final years of the Bank of Upper Canada's operation are disproportionately scarce — not because few were printed, but because the receiver's liquidation process was messy and prolonged, and surviving unredeemed notes were systematically recalled or destroyed.
The Bank of Upper Canada was already in serious trouble by 1861 — chronic mismanagement and overexposure to bad railway loans had been draining its reserves for years, and it would collapse entirely in 1866, making this a late-period note from a failing institution. Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Edson were the dominant security printers for Canadian chartered banks at the time, and their New York shop produced the vast majority of Ontario bank paper in this period.
Notes from the final years of the Bank of Upper Canada's operation are disproportionately scarce — not because few were printed, but because the receiver's liquidation process was messy and prolonged, and surviving unredeemed notes were systematically recalled or destroyed.