Catalog
5 Dollars
| Issuer | Commercial Bank of Canada, Collingwood |
|---|---|
| Year | 1861 |
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| Value | 5 Dollars |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | The obverse is printed in green on white cotton paper and carries the bold title 'COMMERCIAL BANK OF CANADA' across the upper centre, with 'COLLINGWOOD' named as the place of payment below. To the left, a pastoral agricultural vignette illustrates cattle resting in a landscape, rendered in fine intaglio engraving. To the lower right, a second vignette portrays a seated mother and child. The denomination 'FIVE DOLLARS' and the promise to pay on demand are inscribed centrally, with the numeral '5' appearing in each lower corner and the capital declaration 'CAPITAL'S $1,000,000' running along the upper border. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse presents a plain, unprinted expanse of aged cotton paper, showing no vignettes, text, or decorative elements — consistent with Canadian chartered bank issues of the early 1860s where the back was left blank. |
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| Comments |
The Commercial Bank of Canada, chartered in 1857 and headquartered in Kingston, operated a branch network that extended to smaller Ontario towns including Collingwood, then a rapidly growing lake port on Georgian Bay. Branch-designated notes of this type carried the branch name in the place-of-payment field rather than the Kingston head office, a practice that helped manage local redemption obligations.
The bank collapsed in 1867 — one of the more consequential Canadian bank failures of the Confederation period — making surviving branch-issue notes from any of its smaller offices genuinely uncommon. Collingwood-payable examples are among the scarcer branch designations in the series.