Living with "test notes".

News: Welcome to the Canadian Paper Money Forum.

This is perhaps a question for some of our older members. (I'm kinda borderline...).  

I am curious to know, when test notes were active in their respective years, was it a well known fact that these notes were in circulation? If so, was there a big search to find these? Or was there simply no real knowledge of their existence/importance?



Thanks.
Jeffrey

P.S.  Nice Christmas smiley faces!!

I can tell you a bit about the AXA and EXA test notes, since I discovered the AXA's.  The community where I lived at the time was one of the target communities where test notes were sent (they weren't distributed everywhere).  I spotted a bundle of nice unc AXA's in the teller's cash where I did my banking, and bought ten of them.  I sent one to Lub Wojtiw, editor of the Canadian Prefix Newsletter at the time, who eventually figured out what the note was - all I knew was that it was different and obviously special.  I sold some of them off to other collectors, dollar for dollar, and the few I had left over I sold years later by auction, at a nice profit.  We also received the EXA's a short time later, but I didn't track down a source for uncs, and just gathered a few nicer ones out of circulation.  There was no thought among collectors at the time that these notes would become rather high priced in a few years, they were just something interesting to comment on, save a few, and spend the rest.

I'm surprised the teller would sell them as opposed to just putting them into circulation...exactly what they were meant for so that they could be "tested".

One would image the teller would know their significance as I understand that they would keep a lookout for the specific prefix letters and then retain them for later observation.

Interesting story. You probably wished you had bought the whole block!!  

The teller had no idea what the notes were, I'm sure.  I had merely withdrawn $10 in ones, so as far as she was concerned, she had put them into circulation.
Only the Bank of Canada people would have recognized the test notes when they were returned for redemption, and would have segregated them from other worn and unfit notes for analysis at that time.
With hindsight there are a lot of things I would have done differently in my collecting career, for sure.  I might have even assembled a collection of Bank of Canada notes, which I never pursued - always a chartered bank and Dominion note collector.

Interesting Bob.

I always thought the tellers knew which notes to look for. So the only time notice was made of these notes was when they were returned to the Bank of Canada. So it is at this time that they would check on when the notes were made and then judge on the quality of the note and its endurance.

I wonder why they never continued to use the middle "X" on the '74 $2 notes instead of the RS?

RS was used because it was left over from the S/R notes of the previous series.  AXB or something like that would not have been used for those notes because at the time they were issued, there were no 3-digit prefixes.  They were strictly using 2-digit prefixes at the time.

For the 1986 $2 note the prefix ARS was skipped. Perhaps a reserved for a test note that was never printed .  intresting  in the least

My theory is that ARS was omitted for the same reason its cousin in the S denominational letter was omitted.... that being a crude reference to buttocks. :-/

BTW: Thanks for pointing this out.  It's a detail I didn't notice when I was making up my prefix tables for all the Bank of Canada notes since 1937.

Other notable omissions include:
ALE (1973 $1)
ARS (1986 $2)
A$$ (1991 $20)
BUM (1986 $2)
GOD (1986 $5)

ARS and ALE were both released as prefixes on Newfoundland and Labrador license plates, though.  

Well, what about "BAD" on the 1973 c/b ones? Those were released. Gee, maybe they should have avoided BAD because people might think it's a "bad" note? I kind of think it's silly that they would avoid certain prefixes, just it might spell something forbidden.

BAD was also released as a NL license plate a few years back.  

BAD was also the title of Michael Jackson's 1987 album - the same year the BAD prefix was released.  

But here is an interesting story:

I was in hospital with a fractured arm (Ouch! ) in '88.  One of the patients on the ward had a $1 bill with the prefix BAD on it.  I told him that his note was a bad one, and he thought it was a counterfeit.  I told him that it was a good one and he still thought it was a bad one, and I told him that BAD was GOOD.   He still didn't believe it and I then told him that it was a good note - with the prefix BAD in the serial number!  

I tell ya, people can be some "gullible" at times...  

BAD is one of the baddest best prefixes on Canadian banknotes I have ever seen.  

Later!  Jonathan  

For the 1986 $2 note the prefix ARS was skipped. Perhaps a reserved for a test note that was never printed .  intresting  in the least

You just teached something new!   It never occured to me that ARS was never used... perhaps for that reason stated. I guess we learn something new everyday  

Yes, infact JHS was used on the journey 5 while JPH was used on the $100 These were internal test notes and are not available to the public. As for test notes released into circulation, the last one to be known was the 1979 $5 with prefix 330. There have not been any since and not likely any, any time soon

**CORRECTED**

Actually, a JHS $5 did get into public hands.  And the $100 was a JPH.

Ive corrected my previous post. If someone has the JHS $5 note then he/she is the only one apart from the bank of canada that has an example of this particular test note.