4 Dollars = 20 Shillings

The Agricultural Bank of Toronto was chartered in 1834 and failed spectacularly in 1837 — one of several Upper Canadian banks brought down by the financial panic that swept North America that year. Notes from this institution had an extremely short window of actual circulation, and surviving examples are correspondingly rare. The dual denomination — four dollars expressed simultaneously as twenty shillings — reflects the uncomfortable monetary reality of pre-Confederation Canada, where British sterling accounting and the Spanish milled dollar both ran concurrently through daily commerce.

Rawdon, Wright & Hatch were among the premier security printers working out of New York at the time, responsible for a significant portion of private bank paper across the northeastern states and the Canadas.