Birds $50 prototype

News: Welcome to the Canadian Paper Money Forum.

I just saw this image on the Bank of Canada Museum's website.

It's a concept note made by De La Rue for the birds series $50.

I remember when, even as a kid, I didn't like the design of the then-new birds $2 and $5 when they came out in 1986.  My initial impression at the time was that there was too much empty space in the design compared to the much more ornate multicoloured series.

Having seen this proposed design, I can say that I have a new appreciation for the simplicity of the final Birds series design.  Can you imagine if the Bank of Canada had approved this proposed design for the series?  It looks like a cheap dry cleaning coupon!

Source:  https://www.bankofcanadamuseum.ca/2022/05/between-tradition-and-technology/



Enjoy,
Dean

Was thinking the same thing as I read your post and was glad when you said it was too 'busy'. LOL

I wonder if that prototype may have been the original working design, and such prototype may have been designed around 1985 or maybe even 1984?  Makes me wonder if there were 1980s prototypes for the other denominations around the same time period?

And I agree, the official version with the birds theme was much better. Though the serial number format on the prototype implies that the Bank of Canada may have been originally intending to incorporate the all-numeric format from the 1979 $5s and $20s on all the other denominations, but ultimately decided to continue the alpha-numeric prefixes instead.

It turns out the Bank of Canada made the right call in the end, though the serial number font on the prototype was very unique and nothing like the version seen on the 1979 banknotes nor the font currently in use since 2001.  Had they kept the all-numeric format, my interest in serial numbers would not have been prevalent anymore.