Canada Dollar Banknotes

The information about this country.

Canada is a country that lies in North America. At 3.85 million square miles, Canada is the second-largest country in the world by total area. Ottawa is the capital city and Toronto is the largest city. English and French are the two official languages of Canada. The Canadian Dollar is the unit of currency in this country.

The history of the Canadian Dollar.

From the 1850s, Canada had been debated between the sterling pound or US Dollar. Turns out, in 1858, a law was enacted in the Province of Canada’s government which provided the dollars will be in circulation instead of the sterling pounds. Soon, the Canadian Dollar (CAD) was issued and active in public by the Bank of Montreal.

The very first Canadian Dollar banknote series was introduced in 1858 at 1 dollar denomination at first. Later, in 1887, the $2, $50, $500, and $1 000 notes were added. These bills were printed by 10 chartered banks in Canada.

The Bank of Canada was founded on July 3, 1934, which aimed to become the only money-producing place of all the federal notes. The second Canadian Dollar was introduced as a result. The denominations were available at 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 25, 50, 100, 500, and 1 000 dollars. These banknotes featured the portrait of the England royal members on the facade. An economic industrial allegory on another side. Because of the various denominations, colors were pretty much modified. Also, this series was issued into two versions involving English and French.

The third banknote series was introduced on July 19, 1937. The $1 000 notes were dismissed. The main reason why this series was in circulation was to bring the Canadian Dollars into bilingual banknotes due to the Bank of Canadian Act (1934). In fact, this series is known as the first bilingual series of Canada. The features were familiar to the previous series. Such as the royal members on the front and Canada industrial on the opposite.

In 1954, the fourth series was introduced. This was called the Canadian Landscape series since the reverse side of each of these banknotes only featured the famous landscapes in Canada, for example, Crescent Beach, the Okanagan Lake, and a covered Bridge,...

In 1969, the Bank of Canada debuted a new series called Scenes of Canada due to the concern of counterfeiting. Therefore, the design had been updated to more resistance and complexity. Interestingly, each note had kept the dominant color which matched the Canadian Landscape series.

Followed with two landscape scenes in the Canada series, the Bird of Canada series was introduced in 1986. The $1 and $2 denominations were excluded and converted to coins. This time, the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II had been much larger.  On the reversed side of each note, there was a bird indigenous. Also, it was the first series that embedded a barcode of serial numbers which helps blind people.

From 2001, the Bank of Canada issued a new series called the Canadian Journey. In fact, this series had been through a very serious process. Increasing security, improving techniques for lost-vision people, and guaranteeing financial budget. As same as the previous, this series was using intaglio printing and micro printing to prevent counterfeiting.

In 2011, the Frontier was the eighth series of the Canadian Dollar banknotes. This time has the appearance of another material which is polymer. The denominations were available at 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 dollars notes. During the process, a team of chemists, engineers, and physicists was called to develop potential features to not be able to counterfeit. 

The latest and also the present series of the Canadian Dollar banknotes was issued and called the Commemorative issue. This is the first series that vertical configuration was in use. More durability and flexibility were added to improve the security features. In 2016, Justin Trudeau-the Prime Minister of Canada-had announced that there will be a series that contained Canadian woman’s images. Hence, in December 2016, Viola Desmos who is a Canadian woman civil rights activist and entrepreneur appeared on the $10 notes.

In 2019, the Canadian Dollar was awarded the top prize in the banknote design competition.