Was the HOW test note a hoax

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 I have not heard anything about it any news ?

Good Question!

X-Savior semms to be everywhere but here....

The HOW and others (HOK, HOY, HOZ...) were just printed on two types of paper or on paper of different thickness/varnish. I found several of them.

Excerpt from reply from BoC about this:

In terms of the Canadian Journey $5 notes currently in circulation, there
 shouldn't be any noticeable difference in the paper composition -this is
 assuming the notes you are comparing are genuine. A change in paper supplier
 did occur in 2004 because the domestic paper supplier we were dealing with
 went bankrupt. We are now dealing with a different supplier. However, the
 technical specifications for the paper have remained unchanged.
--- End BoC,  Bold added for emphasis.

Within any product, there are variations within an acceptable range.  As long as the paper was still acceptable, it was used.  Thus the soft/light feeling notes that were found.  This is what makes most sense to me.  The point is, there WERE changes going on.

I don't belive it was a hoax.  Perhaps a jumping of the gun maybe; but hoax implys "intent to decieve" and I do not believe there was.

Thanks, Hudson, for the more complete explanation.
I agree with you on all points.
A thing however, the "change" is not significative.

Most significative is the varnish used on the AOG prefix 5$,
but unfortunately the change seem to have occured around the midddle of the prefix:I have 4M without varnish and 6M with varnish, so no speculation will take place, in my opinion.

For the moment the AOG without varnish are more difficult to locate.