1935 $50 english

News: Registration is free here at the CPMF!

Hello everyone. With 131000 printed, I was wondering why they are so expensive even in the lower grades.

Because very few survived

Dear Starman

I meant to reply to your message sooner. I do agree with the comments listed above that the number in production has very little to do whit the number of outstanding notes. I also believe as far as Bank of Canada notes are concerned this one could be considered scarce but not overly rare. The note is seldom seen on the market and attracts mostly the top end buyers. Being from the first series of Bank of Canada note and having seen a short lived 2 years in circulation the demand far outweighs the remaining examples. Very few of these have survived in higher grades and the battle to obtain these creates a nice 10% yearly increase across all grades.

As memory serves most dealers are asking in ranges of 20% above book for this note.

A) even if the 131,000 printed survived (which they didn't) That low number is little over 1% of a full run of 10,000,000
B) YES think of the context back then: $50 is a lot of money during the depression, the worst outbreak of polio, and tensions mounting in Europe (political instability)
C) not many survived in collectible condition during a 2 year life span for the first Bank of Canada issue printed in bilingually separate runs
D) 1935 is one of the most popular series for collectors to collect
E) Some collectors don't let a high denomition (like a $50) deter them- they just collect what's scarce