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20 Dollars Canal Bank, 'Redback'
| Issuer | The New Orleans Canal & Banking Company |
|---|---|
| Year | 1831-1895 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Obverse description | Printed on salmon-tinted paper, the obverse carries an elaborate intaglio design with four guilloche-framed numeral '20' counters at each corner, each set within a wreath border. A central upper vignette presents two winged allegorical figures flanking a large '20' cartouche, with two putti below. To the lower left, a portrait vignette of a white-wigged gentleman faces right, while to the lower right, a portrait of a young woman in period dress faces left. The bank title 'CANAL BANK.' is rendered in bold display type across the centre, with the promise text in italic script and 'NEW ORLEANS' in large capitals below, over a large lightly printed 'TWENTY' underprint. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 20 CANAL BANK The New Orleans Canal & Banking Company Will pay TWENTY DOLLARS to the bearer on demand. NEW ORLEANS |
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| Comments |
The Canal & Banking Company was one of the more durable antebellum Louisiana institutions, surviving successive banking crises that wiped out several of its New Orleans contemporaries. The "Redback" nickname derives from the distinctive red-tinted reverse printing, a deliberate anti-counterfeiting measure that Toppan, Carpenter & Co. employed on several Southern issues during this period — the red ink was difficult to reproduce faithfully with the photographic and chemical counterfeiting methods then in use.
Louisiana's 1842 banking reforms, among the strictest in the pre-Civil War United States, required specie reserves against circulation that most other states never demanded. The Canal Bank survived partly because of that discipline.