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5 Dollars Bank of Montreal
| Issuer | Bank of Montreal |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Printed in green, the reverse centres on an intaglio vignette of the Bank of Montreal's neoclassical Head Office building in Montreal. Elaborate guilloche rosettes bearing the numeral 5 are positioned at left and right, with the denomination "Five Dollars" in serif lettering along the lower margin and the printer's imprint at the base. |
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| Variants | P#S548a - issued note |
| Comments |
The Bank of Montreal's 1923 Dominion-era chartered bank notes occupied an unusual legal position: they circulated as de facto currency despite being private liabilities, not government obligations. The federal government had been steadily legislating chartered banks out of the note-issuing business since 1934, but the 1923 series predates that pressure entirely — these were printed during the last decade when such issuance was still genuinely profitable.
Williams-Taylor and Meredith were both serving Bank of Montreal presidents whose tenures overlapped the signing window for this series. The dual-signature format was standard for the bank's notes of this period, with one signature from each of two senior officers as a control measure against fraudulent issuance.