Bank of Hamilton notes

News: Welcome to the Canadian Paper Money Forum.

One of the most highly collected series. The infomation that is in the new paper money book is nearly complete. Should be published shortly.

The standard catalogue of chartered bank notes.

I did a little contribution on the Bank of Hamilton series.

1892 $5 attached.

That note is an old friend of mine.  I bought it at the 1977 CNA convention sale in Vancouver - - for $24.00!  After upgrading I sold it to a collector from N.B. and I never knew where it went after that.  Now I know!

Is it a replacement note?  There is an asterisk of sorts after the serial number!!!!

It's not a replacement note.  The Bank employed Western Bank Note Co. from Chicago to print its 1892 and 1904 notes (I can't think of another Canadian bank that had its notes printed there), and the little design seems to be a part of its numbering of all notes it produced for Bank of Hamilton.

Nice history of the note. I don't even remember where I bought it, or when, or for what amount.

The thing that looks like an asterisk is on all the notes printed in that era, the above information is bang on.



Rick

Does anyone know what province issued the Bank of Hamilton notes?

Aidan.

Hamilton is a city in Ontario, Canada. (Google Maps link)

From the Charlton Standard Catalogue of Canadian Bank Notes, 4th Edition, (paraphrased): The Bank of Hamilton opened its head office in Hamilton, Ontario in 1872. It opened its first two agencies in Listowel and Port Elgin the following year. By the time it was amalgamated with the Canadian Bank of Commerce in 1923, the Bank of Hamilton had 157 locations.

Chartered bank notes are not issued by a province or other government. That is why they are called chartered bank notes. They are banknotes issued by a chartered or private bank.

Hey Royalist

This may be slightly off topic of the post but in answerign your question. Chartered bank are not all organized by province. As it is true that most province had a chartered bank named after them so did bank from big citiesor others. Before 1935 all banks had the right to print their own money therefore we have a book now with hundreds of chartered banks listed. The most popular ones would be the Barclays, Canadian Bank of Commerce, Dominion Bank, Imperial Bank, Halifax Banking, Banque D'hochelaga, Merchant Bank, Molson Bank, Bank of Montreal, Bank of Nova Scotia, Provincal Bank, The Quebec Bank, Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Toront.
The chartered market is still slightly new as far as collectors and is just starting to show what kind of potential it has.

You really need to get the books and learn a little Canadian geography.

Before the Canadian Federal Government got involved directly, "Chartered" banks could be setup under an agreement with the Government. These are businesses, and although they may incorporate the name of a town, city, or province, they did not have any real connection with the related government bodies. ie. The Bank of Montreal has no direct relationship with the City of Montreal's city governance.

We have "Provincial" notes that where issued by Provincial Governments (oddly enough, the Bank of Nova Scotia is a "Chartered" bank, a business, and not a Provincial bank). The "Province of New Brunswick" is a Provincial Government that issued notes.

We also have "Municipal” issues, where cities or town’s got into the banking thing and issued notes. Again, though, it’s not always obvious. The Toronto Bank, is a Chartered bank, not the City of Toronto, who did also issue their own notes.

The Dominion of Canada notes where the first Federal Government issued notes, and then, as pointed out earlier, that became the Bank of Canada in 1935. Between 1935 and about 1950 the Federal Government slowly took away the right for all others to issue notes. The concept of  a Central Bank was clearly emulated by what the US did previously.

Then, to make things exciting, we have "scripts" issued by cities, towns, gas stations, the military, and just about everyone else you can image. You could argue that "Canadian Tire Money" is one such example.

All this to say that it’s very difficult for a non-Canadian to just “ask away” to come into a full understanding of the 200 or so Charter Banks and dozens of Municipal, Provincial and Federal banks. You need to do some basic learning first.

I started, at one point, to collect images from as many of these banks as possible. The task it completely overwhelming. You can see my feeble start at http://www.cdnpapermoney.com/English/TheNotes.htm. We moved the concept to Brent’s WIKI, but I can’t build it too much until he gets the real site running, as it doesn’t export well. When he gets it setup, we can hopefully be of more help, but this forum does not have the resources to answer all your questions without you doing the necessary basic learning. I would strongly recommend that you purchase the two Charlton books (you can get them from several sources, even in the UK). It will save us all a lot of frivolous questions.