100 Dollars

The Royal Bank of Canada's pre-Confederation chartered bank issues occupy a peculiar corner of Canadian numismatics — legally circulating private currency at a time when the Dominion government had not yet fully asserted monopoly control over note issue. The 1909 series was printed by American Bank Note Company in New York, a firm that handled the majority of Canadian chartered bank work during this period simply because domestic printing capacity for high-security intaglio work barely existed.

At the $100 denomination, actual circulation would have been negligible. These moved between banks and large commercial accounts, not through everyday trade. Survivor rates are accordingly low — not because they wore out, but because they rarely left institutional hands long enough to get lost.