Banknotes with a story...post yours here too!

News: Registration is free here at the CPMF!

December 3rd finds, part 3:

I bought this 1937 short snorter today:

On the front are several signatures, but only one is legible.  It reads “J.A. Griffin”.


On the back, there are some signatures in fountain ink.

One reads “Grant Swanson Feb. 20/51”.

The other signatures are hard to read..but they arecalso dated February of 1951, during the Korean War era.

Enjoy!

Dean

December 3rd finds, part 4:

I also picked up this 1954 $1 today.

It has smudged ink on the red serial numbers…

Has anybody ever seen this before?

Enjoy!
Dean

Hi,
It's a great found,never see a ink smudge like this.
It's really nice to show us what you found because someone somewhere see this and remember if he seem something like that in the past,maybe I hope?
The most important things I wish more collectors would like to share their discovery with us in the futur like Dean.
Claude

December 19th:

I was looking through some of the notes I found the other day and I saw a bit of offset ink on one of the journey $10s.


What do you think?  Keeper or spender?

Dean

I would keep it, you never know who might be interested.

December 21st finds:

I picked up three journey $50s today.
Each of them have partial bank stamps on them.

Note #1 has a black square stamp with the partial digit “1” and “10” on opposite corners.  I’m not sure which bank used this kind of stamp.

Note #2 has just enough information to determine that it is institution #004 or The Toronto Dominion Bank.

Note #3 has a faint date stamp that I think reads “May 26. 2010” and institution #030 which is The Canadian Western Bank.

Enjoy!
Dean

December 28th find:
Did I find a companion note?

Today, I picked this birds $50 out of the mutilated pile at one of my banks.

It’s neat because it has the date 03/01/93 and the name “Helen”.  It also says “1st salary” and “1st Un…” something unintelligible in cursive writing.

What’s even more intriguing is that I found a 1979 $20 earlier in 2023 at the same bank that had a similar inscription, except it was for somebody named “Cris”

I’m willing to bet that these two notes belonged to siblings who lived in the area in 1993 and both kept their “first salary” from their jobs as a souvenir.  Since both of these notes were handed in to the same bank branch, I also believe that the people who are named on these notes still live in the area.

Take a look at the “S” in “salary”.  It appears to have been written by the same person.

This has to be my coolest find of 2023…and I’ve found a lot of stuff!

Enjoy!
Dean

December 28th mail call:

If today’s finds weren’t enough, I got this $100 in the mail today.

Somebody wrote “Bills Visa” on the front.

It could have been intended to pay “Bill’s Visa” and the person who wrote it forgot the apostrophe.  Or, the $100 could have been earmarked to pay that month’s Bills AND Visa.

Grammar does matter!

Writing directly on money as an organizational method such an old school thing to do.  I can see in my mind’s eye this person withdrawing cash from the bank, bringing it home, laying out the monthly bills on the kitchen table and physically putting money beside each invoice before returning to the bank to have the teller pay each invoice…by hand, and having the teller complete every individual transaction with a date stamp on each invoice as “proof” that the bills were paid (after the teller had updated the person’s passbook).🤣🤣🤣🤣

How times have changed…

Enjoy!
Dean

January 2nd 2024 finds:

I picked up this 1954 $100 and birds 50 from one of my banks today.
The $100 has those curiously rounded edges.  About a month ago, I found some $1s and $2s with the same rounded corners.  The only reason I can imagine why someone would do this is to fit the notes into some sort of keepsake album.  The note also has “#17981” inscribed in cursive numbers between the serial numbers.

I have included a photo of the $100 note along with the $1s and $2s all with rounded corners.  What are the odds that these notes were once in the same collection?  My hypothesis is that the notes were part of an estate dispersal; I found all of the rounded corner notes in the same area of Toronto, but at two completely different banks.

The birds $50 is another “car note” because there’s a licence plate number written on it.  AKDY 959.
If I recall, the 4 letter “A” series of Ontario plates were issued in the mid to late 1990s.  Wouldn’t it be cool if someone at the Ministry of Transportation could look up this plate number for me?🤣

Enjoy!
Dean

January 16th find:

Today, I picked up this journey $50 from one of my banks.

It has the transit number 68262-002

Scotiabank
Doon Village Centre
601 Doon Village Road
Kitchener Ontario
N2P 1T6

There’s also a partial teller stamp 6396…
ONT CA…
00…
R1…

Enjoy!
Dean

PS:  Why do teller stamps always have to be on $50 and $100 bills?  🤣

February 1st mail call:

I bought this 1979 $20 for the teller stamp.
Though it is incomplete, the transit number is clearly visible.

60152-002
The Bank of Nova Scotia

A quick search reveals that this branch is located at:

19 Molson Park Drive
Barrie, Ontario
L4M 9H5

Pretty cool, eh?

Enjoy!
Dean

February 2nd finds:

Interesting $100s…

Three of the 1975 $100s I got from the bank today had interesting things written on them.

The first note has what I think is a commercial vehicle plate number written on it.  In Ontario, trucks have different plates than passenger cars.  The format is 2 letters followed by 5 numbers: AA * 12345 with the asterisk actually a small crown on the plates.

Interestingly, up until the 1990s, Ontario still had embossed enamel painted licence plates.  In those days, the commercial vehicle plates had two letters and one number separated by an embossed crown and then three more digits: AA1*123.

The second $100 note was earmarked for “Billy”.

The third $100 has the wobbly cursive sums written on the back, like so many other $100s in the mutilated pile.Unfortunately, the writing just had to be on the AJX replacement note!    

Enjoy!
Dean

In helping Dean's search for banknotes with a story, I managed to find these notes on eBay which reflects the Canadian personality in many ways.  There is a Devil's Face $1 banknote where somebody on June 25, 1955 had to pay off a debt probably due to a bet.  In June, it would not be a bet on Hockey but maybe CFL football or a non-sporting bet.  Enjoy the text as it was drafted in 1950's sanitized English.

There is another Devil's Face $1 banknote with the date June 20, 1955 but I could be wrong as I am red-green colorblind.  I also found a 1867-1967 banknote where the person was celebrating the Centennial with the date of January 14, 1967.  I was 9 years old then and I cannot remember when these banknotes were released to the public but I saw plenty of them when I was a paperboy for the Toronto Star.

I also picked up a 1991 Bird Twenty with the inscription of "I bless this" on the body of the loon which could mean anything.  It is up to your interpretation to figure this one out.

Anyways, enjoy the pictures and now I can sell these banknotes to Dean for big money!!!

Best regards, Whitenite

February 19th mail call update:

I bought this circulated $2 along with two other notes simply because it had a message written on it.

“To Onita From Aunt Mick”

Enjoy!
Dean

February 19th:  Oshawa Coin A Rama finds, part 1:

I went to this show and found several treasures!

This $2 note has the “pink stamp of death”.  It reads:

The Royal Bank of Canada
4002 17 Ave SE
Calgary, ALTA 003 00777
And vertically, “81 03 0…”

So I gather that this note passed through the branch in March of 1981.

The branch of RBC is no longer at this address.  When entered into Google, the address is now occupied by the Nile Supermarket.

Enjoy!
Dean