20 Piastres/Dollars

The Gore Bank of Hamilton was chartered in 1835 and operated until its absorption by the Canadian Bank of Commerce in 1870. A 20 piastres denomination is a direct product of the bilingual currency confusion that defined Upper Canada commerce in the early Victorian period — piastres and dollars were used interchangeably to describe the same unit, a hangover from the Spanish milled dollar that had circulated widely alongside British sterling and local Halifax currency.

Hamilton was still a modest lakehead town when the Gore Bank opened. That a chartered bank there would issue paper in this dual-denomination format reflects just how unsettled the monetary arithmetic of the province remained before the 1841 currency reforms began to impose order.