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20 Dollars Bank of Montreal
| Issuer | Bank of Montreal |
|---|---|
| Year | 1938 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Printed entirely in green intaglio on a cream ground, the reverse centres on a detailed architectural vignette of the Bank of Montreal's neoclassical head office on Saint-Jacques Street, Montreal, with its grand Corinthian colonnade, domed roof, and a period street scene including horse-drawn carriages and pedestrians on the steps below. The building vignette is enclosed within a fine guilloche frame flanked by elaborate lathe-work panels, each bearing a large numeral 20 at the outer corners and the Roman numeral XX in cartouches at lower left and right, with the bank name arcing across the upper border and the denomination TWENTY DOLLARS set in a beaded cartouche at the base. |
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| Signature(s) | S.G. Spinney and C.B. Gordon |
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| Comments |
The Bank of Montreal's 1938 dominion-era notes were printed by the Canadian Bank Note Company at a moment when Canadian chartered bank currency was already living on borrowed time. The Bank of Canada Act of 1934 had established the central bank, and the 1944 amendments to the Bank Act would formally end the chartered banks' right to issue notes — giving institutions like the Bank of Montreal only a narrow window to redeem outstanding obligations before the privilege was extinguished entirely.
S.G. Spinney served as the Bank's Cashier and C.B. Gordon as President, a pairing that places this note firmly in the final active chapter of private Canadian note issuance.