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Margin width aside, are the note's physical dimensions larger than what is standard?
A consideration with respect to discussions on wider than specified notes is the impact of dimensions on the usability of the banknote reader for the visually impaired. The Bank of Canada has been supplying through CNIB banknote readers that are designed to denominate banknotes for the visually impaired.
There have been several generations of banknote readers which have been designed to read the notes from the bird series forward.
In order to use the banknote readers the notes have to be inserted in a certain way. In the first series of readers the note longer than 153mm cannot be inserted into the reader without bending it and therefore affecting the use of the reader.
In the second generation readers the banknote wider than 70.3mm cannot be inserted into the reader without bending it and therefore affecting its use.
Shorter notes can be inserted but the possibility exists that they may not be read correctly.
I would therefore argue that at least for the paper banknotes of the bird series and journey series there would have been a better level of quality control to ensure that they were not cut greater or shorter than the specification. Of course some cuts out of specifications +/- tolerances can happen in any production process but they would be very small exceptions. Anything that is widespread would cause a problem.
Some banknote specifications call for a size to be within +/- 1mm of the specifications for various reasons. There are also specifications related to non-square cuts which has been a problem with some early polymer notes.
I have been measuring out of specifications notes for journey series since and polymer series since 2011 and surprisingly new and circulated notes (other than heavily creased ones or notes with heavy surface undulations) are well within +/-1 mm. In fact it has been highly uncommon to come across notes that vary by greater than 0.7mm either way.
In journey series notes and polymer notes there is a very easy method to identify if any shortening (or lengthening) is happening because of impacts of use related factors such as moisture or it is happening from the initial cutting during production. This is even true with heavily soiled notes. If anyone is interested in this topic I am happy to meet up in Toronto area to demonstrate this or you may get a clue on this from one of the articles in CPMS journal related notes with cut BPN.