Z Overprint on 1875 $4 Imperial Bank of Canada

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Does anyone know what the purpose of the Z Z blue overprints on the 1875 $4 Imperial Bank of Canada notes was?

Of the approximately 9 different $4 notes that I have seen images of in the last few years, 2 were proofs, 5 were without the overprint, and only 2 had the Z Z overprint.

The Charlton catalogue mentions the overprint but gives no explanation?

I attach an image of one of the notes from the Currency Museum at:
http://www.currencymuseum.ca/eng/collection/view.php?objectid=1966.0012.00003.000

Bernie

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One would like to think the Z represented some sort of Replacement note, but that's not very likely. Several other banks used letter overprints on some of their notes, e.g., The Union Bank of Lower Canada, La Banque Nationale, and The Bank of Hamilton. Presumably the letters were employed for control purposes, perhaps to identify notes issued outside the bank's home base region, or something like that? In this regard, The Bank of Upper Canada employed various related overprints, i.e., specific town names, town names and numbers together, and numbers alone.

Of all recorded Imperial Bank $4s, the Z overprint occurs only on the two highest numbered known notes (20848/B and 21263/D), which we can probably assume were among the last $4 notes issued by the bank.  That would suggest that the overprinted notes went into circulation around 1879-80, as banks lost the right to issue that denomination under the Bank Act revision of 1880.
They would not be replacement notes; any errors in those days were rectified by making a new note with the same number as the ruined one - "do it right or do it over".
That the notes had a special purpose is clear; just what it was is completely unknown.  The bank obviously wanted to be able to recognize those notes when they returned for redemption, for whatever reason.

Thank you so much for the information.

It is amazing what can be found on ebay at a reasonable price.

Bob: I searched my CPMS newsletters back to 2000 and could not find a register of these notes. Does one exist?

Bernie

Only the Imperial Waterlow issues 1902-10 have been published, if memory serves.  The rest does exist.

Bob,
Where does the rest exist?
Is it available?
Bernie

Part of it could be published by CPMS at some future time.  The part relating to more common issues is being added to all the time and is nowhere near "mature" enough for publication.