20 Dollars

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.