5 Pounds

The Central Bank of New Brunswick was a short-lived institution, chartered in 1834 and operating out of Fredericton at a time when the province still had no unified currency — British sterling, American dollars, and local paper all circulated simultaneously at shifting exchange rates. Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Edson, the New York firm responsible for this note, were among the most technically accomplished security printers in North America at the time, later absorbed into the American Bank Note Company in 1858.

New Brunswick did not join Confederation until 1867, and provincial bank notes like this one remained legal tender in the territory well into the transition period. The Central Bank itself folded before that transition, making the full issuance window for this series narrower in practice than the 1851–1857 date range suggests.