4 Dollars / 1 Pound Bank of British North America, Brantford

The Bank of British North America was chartered in London in 1836 and operated as a British imperial institution with branches across the Canadian provinces — making it structurally distinct from the locally chartered colonial banks competing alongside it. The dual denomination of 4 Dollars / 1 Pound reflects the currency confusion endemic to mid-century Upper Canada, where sterling and Halifax currency ran parallel to American dollar reckoning, and merchants routinely needed both on the same instrument.

Perkins, Bacon & Petch had mastered the lathe-work guilloche and siderographic transfer techniques that made their plates extraordinarily difficult to counterfeit. The Brantford branch was a minor outpost serving the Grand River farming districts — high-denomination branch notes from small offices saw limited release and light return traffic, which accounts for the relative scarcity of surviving Brantford-payable examples today.