Catalog
4 Dollars = 20 Shillings
| Issuer | Agricultural Bank, Toronto |
|---|---|
| Year | 1837 |
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| Value | 4 Dollars = 20 Shillings |
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| Obverse description | The obverse is arranged in a horizontal format with the bank title 'THE AGRICULTURAL BANK' arched across the upper centre and 'UPPER CANADA' to the right. A central vignette presents a standing female figure surrounded by agricultural implements and produce, flanked on the left by a vignette of a soldier or hunter and on the right by a pastoral scene with cattle and a ploughman. The denomination numeral '4' appears in large figures at each corner, with the words 'FOUR' in letterpress along the lower left and right margins, while the body of the note carries the manuscript promise to pay Twenty Shillings currency at the office in Montreal, dated Toronto, October 1837, with engraved countersignature. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is essentially plain, printed on uncoated cotton paper and bearing only a faint offset impression from the obverse printing, with no distinct design elements, vignettes, or inscriptions intentionally applied to this side. |
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| Comments |
The Agricultural Bank of Toronto was a short-lived private institution that failed in 1837 — the same year this note was issued — caught in the financial panic that swept across North America following Andrew Jackson's Specie Circular and the subsequent collapse of credit. The bank's demise was swift enough that many of its notes never completed a full cycle of circulation, which makes surviving examples genuinely uncommon rather than artificially scarce.
The dual denomination — dollars and shillings expressed simultaneously — reflects the monetary confusion of Upper Canada in the 1830s, where British sterling, American dollars, and local currencies competed in daily transactions. No central authority had yet imposed a single standard.