100 Dollars

The Bank of Hamilton was one of Ontario's oldest chartered banks, founded in 1872, and by 1909 it was operating under increasing pressure from the consolidation wave sweeping Canadian private banking. This $100 note appeared just three years before the bank was absorbed by the Canadian Bank of Commerce in 1924 — one of dozens of provincial charters that disappeared in the early twentieth century as Ottawa tightened federal banking regulation.

American Bank Note Company in New York handled much of the high-denomination work for Canadian chartered banks during this period. At $100, circulation would have been light and largely commercial — retail transactions rarely touched this value — which partly accounts for survival in better grades.