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20 Dollars

Issuer Canadian Bank of Commerce
Year 1922
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Shape Rectangular
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Obverse lettering THE CANADIAN BANK OF COMMERCE
20 DOLLARS IN BARBADOS CURRENCY
BARBADOS
BRIDGETOWN, BARBADOS
ON DEMAND
TWENTY DOLLARS
2ND JANUARY 1922
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Reverse lettering CANADIAN BANK OF COMMERCE
20
TWENTY
20
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Comments

The Canadian Bank of Commerce was one of the few Canadian chartered banks still issuing its own currency into the early 1920s, a practice that would effectively end with the 1934 Bank of Canada Act. This 1922 issue came off the American Bank Note Company's New York presses at a time when ABNC held the dominant share of Canadian chartered bank note contracts — a commercial relationship that dated back to the mid-nineteenth century and produced a remarkably consistent visual grammar across competing institutions.

Chartered bank notes of this period circulated alongside Dominion of Canada government issues, and the $20 denomination saw genuine commercial use rather than sitting idle in reserve. Survivors with honest wear are not uncommon, but unissued remainders also exist.