Niagara District Bank $4 Note - Is It Real?

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I would be very grateful for some -- any! -- information on this note.  It does not appear to have a serial number.  I didn't see any $4 1872 notes listed on the census for surviving notes from the Niagara District Bank. The only accompanying information I have is a hand-written note (in felt-tipped pen on a torn-off page from a note pad) stating that this note is "very scarce".

Thanks in advance.

It's a modern reproduction.  It has been said that the plates were found in a dump about 1960, and that they found their way into the hands of a Toronto dealer who had some copies printed.  The $4 illustrated in Canadian Bank Notes is similar.  The portraits aren't very well printed; the tops of the heads of both Merritt and Benson seem to be missing.  The very dark areas in the border, at the bottom centre and left side particularly, are also characteristic of the reproductions.
Sorry to disappoint - but the "note" would still have some very modest market value.

Thanks for your reply.  Alas! I had my suspicions. 

We'll put this one aside as a curiosity, marked on the protective cover as a reproduction.

Bob,

The Charlton catalogue mentions that these reproductions were done via lithography. Your scenario seems to indicate that they might have been done with the original intaglio plates, albeit with a bad impression?

Most of the reproductions that I have seen were done on green paper that also have the additional black ink at the bottom on the $4 notes. Did the printer just use different colored papers?

Charlton also mentions that the $4 note is known to be only in institutional collections. I could not find it in the online National Currency Collection of the Bank of Canada. Does this mean it is in a different institutional collection or that it is just not online at their website?

That's why I was careful to say "It has been said that....".  The bit about finding the plates in the dump may have been a cover story for the reproduction.  But there had to be an original at some point.  Perhaps there is some truth behind the story and the litho copies were made from a plate impression???  It would be useful to examine the note pictured here on the Forum to determine whether it is intaglio or litho printed.  Either way, it is still a reproduction.
There is no $4 on the register, but there could be one buried in the archives of a chartered bank, for instance.  The NCC does not have one.  It is known with certainty that they were issued.

So Gigi could you please run your fingers over the note. If you feel ridges from the ink, then it is probably an intaglio engraving. If it feels flat, then it probably is a lithograph.