100 Dollars

The Bank of Hamilton was one of Ontario's oldest chartered banks, founded in 1872 and eventually absorbed by the Canadian Bank of Commerce in 1924. By 1904, Hamilton had long since lost its early bid to be the financial capital of Upper Canada, but the bank remained a legitimate regional institution with branches across southern Ontario. A $100 denomination would have served primarily commercial and inter-bank purposes — retail customers rarely handled notes of this size.

Western Bank Note Company in Chicago handled printing for numerous Canadian chartered banks during this period, a reminder that Canadian currency printing was not domestically consolidated until much later. The note predates the 1923 Home Bank collapse, which accelerated the push toward tighter federal oversight of chartered bank issuance.