10 Dollars

The Bank of Montreal's 1914 issues represent the last generation of chartered bank currency before the Dominion government systematically squeezed private banks out of the small-denomination note business — a process largely complete by the 1940s. The Bank of Montreal was Canada's oldest chartered bank and long regarded as the government's de facto banker, which gave its notes unusually wide acceptance across the country.

The American Bank Note Company maintained a production facility in Ottawa by this period, having established Canadian operations to handle the substantial volume of chartered bank and government security work available in the Dominion. P#544 falls within a series that circulated through the early years of the First World War, when hoarding of metallic currency put significant pressure on paper circulation.