BWJM, please correct me if I'm wrong, but is there any reason to think that the BoC even compiles this information? We know outstanding notes by denomination and by issuer; not by series, signature, prefix or anything else.
As mutilated notes come in, do the employees manually record every single serial number of every single note that crosses the table before being consigned to the furnaces?
The Bank of Canada has records of how many notes were issued in each denomination for each series and I'm curious as to how thorough the redemption process is.
Since you are both basically asking the same thing, I'll respond jointly.
First off, a bit of history. We know that at least through the 1940s, the Bank of England had ledger books where they recorded every single banknote that they issued, and they struck them off when they were turned in for redemption and destroyed. We know this because this is how the famed Operation Bernhard counterfeit banknotes were ultimately discovered. They were of such high quality that they passed all but the most rigorous examinations, and even some of those! But when a note comes in for redemption and the ledgers show it has already been redeemed, something is amiss, and so it turned out to be! A similar situation occurred in 1929 Portugal with the Alves Reis banknotes. Both are very interesting stories and I encourage you all to research them further. That's all I'll say about them here.
Back to the point, although ledgers were kept almost a century ago, with the volume of banknotes produced in modern times, such a thing would be impractical today, even with computerization and digital recordkeeping. Consider also the mutilated notes program. Many banknotes come in for redemption where only bits and pieces of them are available, or where they are so destroyed or otherwise contaminated that determining their serial number is impossible. Additionally, the Bank of Canada doesn't actually do the bulk of banknote processing anymore. That's left to various regional cash management companies who, under contract with both the Bank of Canada and the Royal Canadian Mint, sift through coins and currency returned from banks and remove unfit banknotes, old coins, etc. I believe that these companies simply report the quantity and breakdown of the unfit banknotes removed and then they destroy them without ever sending them back to the Bank of Canada.
In fact, it would be inefficient for the Bank of Canada to even be a physical middleman in the supply of new banknotes. When a regional facility requires more notes, they place an order with the Bank and the Bank authorizes a shipment from Canadian Bank Note directly to the facility.
So I do not believe that serial number-based records are currently kept by the Bank of Canada. Serial numbers exist as a means of counting banknotes and ensuring that the right amount of banknotes are produced and issued.
There is also no evidence at this point that the Bank of Canada maintains records of how many notes
per series are still outstanding, only the issuer (Bank of Canada, Dominion of Canada, chartered banks, provincial notes) and the denomination.
That said, I do not work for the Bank of Canada or even in the financial sector, nor have I ever, and I have no "inside information" in this regard. It is simply the conclusions I have reached based on my personal observations over 20 years of collecting, plus a bit of logical deduction, etc. I make no guarantees and I could be completely wrong, though that would surprise me!
