Catalog
2 Dollars
| Issuer | Banque Jacques Cartier |
|---|---|
| Year | 1862 |
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| Reference(s) | P#S822 |
| Obverse description | The obverse is divided into three oval portrait vignettes: at centre, a standing three-quarter figure of Jacques Cartier in Renaissance attire; at lower left, a bust portrait of a woman; and at lower right, a bust portrait of a man. The word DEUX appears at left and TWO at right in large serif numerals, with the bank title LA BANQUE JACQUES CARTIER arching across the top between the inscriptions PROVINCE and DU CANADA. A fine guilloche underprint fills the background, and the promise text reading DEUX PIASTRES and TWO DOLLARS appears in two bilingual columns flanking the central vignette. The note is dated Montréal, 2 Janvier 1863, with capital stated as $1,000,000 and two manuscript signatures at the base. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | No reverse image is available for this note; a full reverse description cannot be provided. |
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| Comments |
The Banque Jacques Cartier was a Montreal institution chartered in 1861, and this note dates from its first full year of operation. The bank had a troubled run — it suspended payments in 1875 during the broader financial instability that followed the collapse of several Quebec-based banks, resumed briefly, then failed definitively in 1876. Notes that survived that contraction did so largely by accident.
The American Bank Note Company had recently consolidated several competing New York security printers when this plate was produced, giving it near-total dominance over Canadian chartered bank printing at the time.