10 Dollars - Gold pattern

British Columbia struck these pattern pieces in 1862 while under pressure from Governor James Douglas to establish a local coinage that would keep gold — then pouring out of the Fraser River and Cariboo goldfields — circulating within the colony rather than bleeding south into American commercial channels. The Colonial Office in London refused to sanction an official currency, so the patterns never advanced to production.

Fewer than a handful of confirmed specimens are known. Ch#Bc-3 is among the most rarely encountered of all Canadian provincial pattern issues.