100 Dollars

The Bank of Hamilton was one of Ontario's more durable chartered banks, operating from 1872 until its absorption into the Canadian Bank of Commerce in 1924. By 1892, Canadian chartered banks still enjoyed the right to issue their own currency — a privilege that persisted until the Bank of Canada Act of 1934 finally centralized note issue. The $100 denomination was never a retail instrument; it moved between merchants, brokers, and correspondent banks, and high-value notes from smaller chartered institutions were retired quickly when they returned to the issuer.

Western Bank Note Company of Chicago handled printing for several Canadian chartered banks during this period, a straightforward cross-border commercial arrangement that raised no regulatory objection at the time.