5 Cents - Ultramar, Esso, Petro-Canada

Canadian petroleum companies — Ultramar, Esso, and Petro-Canada — issued small-denomination paper scrip for internal use, typically to manage change at service station pumps during periods when coin shortages made exact-cent transactions cumbersome. These pieces occupy an awkward category: technically notaphilic material, but closer in function to trade tokens than banknotes. Collector interest is narrow but persistent, driven largely by the Petro-Canada issues, which date to the Crown corporation's early years following its creation by the Trudeau government in 1975.