4 Dollars

The Colonial Bank of Canada was a short-lived institution, chartered in 1859 and absorbed into the Canadian banking consolidation that followed Confederation. This $4 denomination reflects a pre-Confederation quirk: Canadian banks in the late 1850s still issued notes in non-decimal values, a hangover from the era when currency circulated in pounds, shillings, and dollars simultaneously. The $4 note slotted neatly against the £1 sterling equivalent at the then-common rate of four dollars to the pound.

American Bank Note Company, by 1859 freshly formed from the merger of several competing New York security printers, held a near-monopoly on Canadian chartered bank work at this period.