10 Dollars

The Bank of British Columbia was absorbed by the Canadian Bank of Commerce in 1901, making any surviving notes from its final years scarce simply by attrition — the acquiring bank had little reason to preserve old stock. This 1894 issue came during a period when the Victoria-based institution was already contracting, its Pacific Northwest ambitions largely unrealized after decades of competition from better-capitalized eastern Canadian banks.

The American Bank Note Company's involvement is typical for western Canadian chartered banks of the period, which routinely looked south rather than to British printers despite colonial ties. ABNC's New York plant produced notes for dozens of competing institutions simultaneously, and shared border elements between contracts were not uncommon.