The International Bank of Canada was chartered in 1858 and lasted barely two years before failing in 1859 — one of several short-lived Upper Canadian banking ventures that collapsed in the credit contraction following the panic of 1857. Notes were issued but the bank never achieved meaningful circulation before it wound down, which makes surviving examples genuinely uncommon rather than artificially scarce.
The dual denomination — dollars and shillings on a single face — reflects the awkward monetary transition period in the Province of Canada, where Halifax currency in shillings coexisted with the dollar system that would eventually win out at Confederation. Danforth, Bald & Co. was a respected security printer operating out of New York at the time, later absorbed into the American Bank Note Company in 1858, which means this note may have been produced right at that corporate transition.
The International Bank of Canada was chartered in 1858 and lasted barely two years before failing in 1859 — one of several short-lived Upper Canadian banking ventures that collapsed in the credit contraction following the panic of 1857. Notes were issued but the bank never achieved meaningful circulation before it wound down, which makes surviving examples genuinely uncommon rather than artificially scarce.
The dual denomination — dollars and shillings on a single face — reflects the awkward monetary transition period in the Province of Canada, where Halifax currency in shillings coexisted with the dollar system that would eventually win out at Confederation. Danforth, Bald & Co. was a respected security printer operating out of New York at the time, later absorbed into the American Bank Note Company in 1858, which means this note may have been produced right at that corporate transition.