20 Dollars

The Colonial Bank of Canada had a short and troubled life. Chartered in 1856 under the Province of Canada, it never achieved the footing its organizers intended, and by the early 1860s it had failed — meaning notes issued in 1859 were in circulation for only a few years before the bank collapsed and redemption became uncertain. Surviving examples from this issuer are scarce precisely because so few were printed before operations ceased.

The American Bank Note Company, newly consolidated in 1858 from several competing New York security printers, produced this note in only its second year of operation under that name.