Bank of Montreal in Mexico???

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Gentlemen:  A "Bank of Montreal"  (sic:  the title is printed in English, not in Spanish)   issued banknotes at Pachuca,  capital of the Mexican state of Hidalgo,  ca.  1915,  payable either at Pachuca or at Mexico City.   The signatures appears to be English (i.e. not Spanish) names,  but there is nothing on the note to indicate any Canadian connection.  Do any of  you happen to know if the Bank of Montreal in Quebec ever had any  connection with this Bank of Montreal in Hidalgo???                                  Bernard Schaaf

It is the same Bank of Montreal

@ Bernard_Schaaf: Do you have a scan of this note? Very curious.

It is the same Bank of Montreal

On what is that statement based?

The notes in question are not really bank notes at all, but drafts evidently intended to circulate as scrip, and issued by a mining company, not by the Bank of Montreal.  They were payable to the bearer, in Mexican pesos, at the Bank of Montreal in Mexico City, where the issuer, Cia. de Real del Monte, presumably had funds on deposit.

My brand new printer/scanner (Kodak ESP-3) is once again broken down (third time), so I am once again temporarily unable to send images, but I will send them as soon as I can, hopefully within the week.  Gaytan catalogue (1965) lists notes of $1 peso,  $2,  $5 (two quite different varieties),  $10,  and  $20  (two varieties).  But Gaytan gives NO details about this bank, and I have never seen any reference anwhere to any Canadian bank branches anywhere in Mexico. Although the bank's name  is indeed prominently printed IN  ENGLISH ( (unlike ANY of the other Mexican banknotes),  the  notes refer to the "Cia. (Compania) de Real de Monte y Pachuca,"  suggesting that Pachuca, like Quebec, also had a Royal Mountain.  The signatures are of Van Loo(?) and E.A. Calland.  So my question to Jasper is: "Is  there any specific information anywhere that verifies this the Hidalgo bank is connected  with  the Quebec bank?       Bernard

Ah hah!  So these are not really banknotes but are checks.  Quite a difference indeed.  Actually, I was not even aware that The Bank of Montreal had a branch in Mexico City. 
         Nevertheless, I will try to post the images as soon as Kodak can get their
machine working again. 

The Bank of Montreal opened its Mexico City branch in 1906; the last Mexican branch was closed in 1934.  See Denison, Vol. II pages 300, 354, 380.

I did some work cataloguing these Pachuca drafts a number of years ago, using such resources as the CPMS Journal and images from Don Olmstead.  I will give my findings below, which may save someone the trouble of doing it all over again.

REAL DEL MONTE & PACHUCA CO. DRAFT ISSUE
This issue consists of drafts, denominated in Mexican pesos, payable to the bearer and drawn on the Bank of Montreal in Mexico City.  The issuing company, The Cia. de Real del Monte, was involved in real estate and mining.  The company was a customer of the Bank of Montreal, and circulated these drafts during a period of revolutionary upheaval.
The "notes" have no engraved portions, nor do they have any vignettes.  There is a decorative panel near the left end of each note.
The backs may bear a cancelled revenue stamp or a rubber stamp by the Pachuca postal administrator.  The back text outlines the terms under which the notes were redeemed.  Additional overprints relating to the revenue stamps occur on the backs of some notes, in black or red.
The notes are 5 1/2 inches long and 2 3/4 inches wide.
There were two different issues.

FIRST ISSUE
Imprint:
 Bouligny & Schmidt, Mexico City
Signatures:
  left  right
 printed, C. W. Van Law  printed, D. S. Colland

Issue Dating:
 1915:  various (Feb. to June), rubber stamped
Overprint (on back):
 text, dated February 18, 1915, in black
   text, dated February 24, 1915 in red


$1 1915  Series A
$2.50 1915  Series E
$5 1915  Series B
$10   1915  Series C
$20   1915  Series D


SECOND ISSUE
Imprint:
 Tip Artistica
Signatures:
  left  right
 mss. D. S. Colland      mss. M. A. Doak

Issue Dating:
  1915:  28 May, rubber stamped


$5   1915  Series L
$10   1915  Series N
$20   1915  Series M

Dear Bob and others: 
            My  collection of images of the Canadian chartered banks "Overseas Issues" (Caribbean Islands plus British Guiana and Bermuda) is virtually complete,*  but it was only recently while working on my collection of Mexico images that I began to wonder whether the Pachuca "Bank of Montreal"  was a Canadian branch.  Thank you for the many details which you have so kindly sent me.
            I understand the BoM had a branch in Mexico City and also in Guadalajara;  am I correct in assuming there was indeed a branch office also in the city of Pachuca??     
            I have been able to acquire nice color images of fronts and backs of just four of the eight varieties:  I  have  the  type I  $1, $5, $10, and $20.  If there are any among you who happen to have any  of the  other  four  notes  (type  I $2.50 and type II  $5,  $10  (not listed by Gaytan)  and  $20) I hope you will be willing to share your  high-resolution images with me.  I can repay each of you only with images of rare Canadian or US or Cuban notes. 
             At the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in February 1913 every single bank in Mexico immediately stopped issuing any banknotes of its own.  It was Pancho Villa. chronically  short of cash,  who first had the idea of forcing local branch banks to draw checks on each other and use these checks, payable to bearer,  as currency to pay his troops and buy supplies  (at  Torreon, in October 1913).   This concept of  using checks payable to bearer as a form of currency was later used in several other locations, but, with only two exceptions, these checks were always drawn on Mexican banks.   Some of the Villa checks at Torreon were drawn either by or on the local branch of the Deutsch-Sudamerikanische Bank, and of course these Cia. Real del Monte y Pachuca checks were drawn on the Mexico City branch of The Bank of Montreal.
        It is quite clear that all these checks did indeed circulate as currency, at  least  for a while in the locale of issue.  It is for this reason that I have finally decided they should indeed be included in my album section on Canadian Overseas Issues. 
            I welcome your comments, criticisms, compliments, and assistance. 
                                                              Bernard Schaaf
      *   I need only an image of the reverse of the CBC Barbados 1940 $5.

According to Denison, the Bank of Montreal had branches at Veracruz, Puebla, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Tampico, and two in Mexico City by 1927, making it the largest banking institution in Mexico.  I don't see any mention of a branch for Pachuca.  Because of economic turmoil and government preference for small local banks, the Bank of Montreal began withdrawing from Mexico in 1931 and closed its last branch there in 1934.  (It has since returned, via an ownership position in Bancomer.)

Thanks for the information on Pancho Villa and the circulating cheques - it provides very useful context.

I would hesitate to characterise the Pachuca notes as "Canadian Overseas Issues", as they were issued by the Cia Real del Monte, not the Bank of Montreal.  (It is for this reason that the Pachuca notes are not listed in Canadian Bank Notes with Bank of Montreal).  A useful parallel might be drawn with the Newfoundland Government Cash Notes.  These were also payable at the Bank of Montreal (in St. John's) but they are classified as issues of the Newfoundland Government, not Bank of Montreal notes. 

Dear Bob:    I  appreciate your cogent discussion of the situation with reference to these Mexican checks on a Canadian bank.  I  have therefore decided that you and the cataloguers are correct, and so I shall not be listing these in my section on Canadian Overseas Banknotes.   Since there is a "Canadian connection,"  however tenuous, I think I will list  these Pachuca checks in a separate Appendix following  the Overseas  section  of  Volume  5.   Therefore I would still like  to acquire  images of  those several checks which I do not yet have. 
                 Once again, thank you for the advice.    Bernard

These notes are listed in the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money Specialized Issues under Mexico/Revolutionary with catalog numbers S834 through S839.