Catalog
5 Shillings Sterling
| Issuer | Hudson's Bay Company, York Factory |
|---|---|
| Year | 1820-1828 |
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| Composition | Paper |
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| Obverse description | Letterpress-printed note on plain paper bearing the Hudson's Bay Company armorial vignette — a shield with supporters and crest — at the upper left, flanked by manuscript annotations in the left margin. The body of the note carries engraved and handwritten text promising payment of Five Shillings Sterling at York Factory in Rupert's Land, drawn on a Bill of Exchange payable sixty days after sight at Hudson's Bay House, London, with the note number, issue date, and place of issue at York Factory filled in manuscript. Signatures of the Secretary, Governor, and Accountant appear at the foot of the text, with endorsements in the left margin. |
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| Reverse description | The reverse is largely plain paper with faint printed text visible at the top from show-through of the obverse. The lower portion carries two horizontal bands of intricate lathe-work guilloche ornament in fine engraved line work, forming a decorative panel of interlocking scrollwork across the full width of the note. |
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| Comments |
Hudson's Bay Company operated its own internal currency system across its trading posts long before any colonial banking infrastructure existed in Rupert's Land. These notes circulated exclusively within HBC posts as wage instruments — issued to employees whose earnings were credited against goods purchased from the Company store, a closed economy that suited the Company's interests considerably more than those of its workers.
York Factory, on the southwestern shore of Hudson Bay, was the Company's primary depot and administrative hub in the region. Notes attributed to that post are among the earliest surviving paper instruments from what would become Canada's Northwest. The series runs across nearly a decade, suggesting reissue rather than a single print run.