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20 Dollars / 4 Pounds 3 Shillings 4 Pence
| Issuer | Royal Bank of Canada |
|---|---|
| Year | 1938 |
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| Printer | Canadian Bank Note Company, Limited, Ottawa, Canada |
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|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Printed entirely in red on plain paper. The British Royal Coat of Arms is centrally placed, supported by a lion rampant to the left and a unicorn to the right, surmounted by the Imperial Crown. A ribbon below bears the motto DIEU ET MON DROIT, with HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE on the shield's garter. Denomination panels reading TWENTY BARBADOS DOLLARS THE EQUIVALENT OF £4-3-4 flank the arms on either side, and THE ROYAL BANK OF CANADA appears in a bold cartouche along the lower margin, with the printer's imprint beneath. |
| Reverse lettering | TWENTY BARBADOS DOLLARS THE EQUIVALENT OF £4-3-4 THE ROYAL BANK OF CANADA CANADIAN BANK NOTE COMPANY, LIMITED. HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE DIEU ET MON DROIT (Translation: Shamed be the one who thinks ill of it. God and my right.) |
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| Comments |
The dual denomination — 20 dollars and its sterling equivalent of 4 pounds 3 shillings 4 pence — reflects a practice the Canadian chartered banks maintained well into the twentieth century for facilitating cross-border commercial transactions, particularly with British correspondent banks. By 1938 the sterling equivalent had become largely ceremonial; Canada had effectively been on a dollar-only footing for decades, and the pound conversion was a vestige that no customer was actually using to calculate anything.
The Royal Bank had been printing through the Canadian Bank Note Company since the early twentieth century, and this issue carries the familiar security features of late-1930s CBNCo production. The S-prefix Pick reference places it in the chartered bank series rather than government issue — an important distinction, as these were private commercial obligations, not legal tender.