5 Dollars

Macdonald & Co. was a private banking house operating in British Columbia during the Fraser River and Cariboo gold rush years. Private bank notes circulated freely in the colony at this period — the colonial government had not established a chartered bank with note-issuing authority, leaving the field open to merchant bankers willing to back their paper with gold dust on deposit.

Britton & Co. of San Francisco handled much of the commercial engraving and printing work for Pacific Coast businesses in this period, including trade cards, certificates, and currency for issuers on both sides of the border. The firm was not a security printer in the formal sense, which partly explains why these notes are considered quite rare today — the issuing house itself was short-lived.