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50 Piastres
| Issuer | Banque d'Hochelaga |
|---|---|
| Year | 1889 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 50 Piastres |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Banque d'Hochelaga Payez au Porteur CINQUANTE PIASTRES 50 DOLLARS Montréal CASSIER Canadian Bank Note Company, Montreal |
| Reverse description | The reverse is printed entirely in green and centres on a large ornate vignette of the bank's heraldic shield — bearing the monogram 'BH' beneath a crown and surrounded by smaller provincial armorial shields — encased within an elaborate engine-turned oval frame with scrollwork. The numeral '50' appears in large bold characters on both the left and right flanks of the central device, and the legend 'BANQUE D'HOCHELAGA' arcs across the top of the oval. The overall composition exhibits dense lathe-work borders characteristic of late nineteenth-century Canadian bank note production. |
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| Comments |
The Banque d'Hochelaga was a French-Canadian institution founded in 1873 to serve the commercial interests of Montreal's francophone merchant class — a deliberate counterweight to the English-dominated banking establishment. By 1889, it was solidly mid-sized but still aggressive in its note issuance, competing in a market where chartered bank notes circulated as the dominant retail currency under the Bank Act framework.
The Canadian Bank Note Company had consolidated much of the chartered bank printing business in this period, and the 50 Piastres denomination is among the less common surviving face values from this issuer. "Piastres" rather than "Dollars" on a Montreal note from this decade is worth noting — a linguistic and commercial identity statement as much as a monetary one.