50 Dollars

The Commercial Bank of Newfoundland collapsed in December 1894, one of two Newfoundland banks that failed simultaneously in what became a catastrophic loss of public confidence in the colony's financial system. The Union Bank went down the same week. Together they wiped out savings across St. John's and triggered a fiscal crisis severe enough that Newfoundland required emergency relief from the British government. Notes of this bank, already six years old by the time the doors closed, had no redemption path — they became worthless overnight.

Survival rate for high-denomination commercial paper from failed colonial institutions is predictably poor. A $50 face value in 1888 Newfoundland was not pocket change.