Sunday, February 08, 2009

Scenes of Canada Banknote Series

Starting in 1969, the fourth series of Canadian banknotes was released. This series is called the Scenes of Canada Banknote Series. The Bank of Canada printed this set of notes from 1969 to 1979 because of troubles over the amount of counterfeiting.

There were many changes to this order of banknotes colorwise to help prevent counterfeiting. On most of the bills, except the $1 bill, black ink was not used for printing. There were new colorful and curvy patterns to the bills and the series became known as the "multicoloured series". The $1000 note was not a part of this set of banknotes. Although the bills were still bilingual, English was not always printed on the left of the bill as French was not always printed on the right as on the previous series of banknotes. Because the currency of Canada was not tradable for gold the phrase "will pay to the bearer on demand" was interchanged with the phrase "this not is legal tender".

To greater national identity, former Canadian prime ministers were pictured on some of the bills. Queen Elizabeth II was initially supposed to be on all of the banknotes, but the Minister of Finance ordered that not all of the bills have the queen's portrait on them.

On the reverse of the Scenes of Canada $1 bill was a sight of the parliament buildings from across the Ottawa River in Ontario.

The $2 note had an Inuit hunting picture taken in Baffin Island on the back of it.

On the front of the $5 bill was Sir Wilfrid Laurier's picture and on the reverse was a salmon seiner boat on the Johnstone Starit in British Columbia.

Sir John A. Macdonald was on the 1971 $10 banknote and on the back of the bill an oil refinery in Sarnia, Ontario was shown.

The Rocky Mountains and Moraine Lake in Alberta are shown on the back of the $20 note.

The Scenes of Canada $50 note had William Lyon Mackenzie King on its obverse and on the reverse was the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Musical Ride.

The Scenes of Canada $100 Banknote has Sir Robert Borden on front and the Lunenburg Harbour, Nova Scotia.

Randy Zakowski is an author and a successful coin seller. Visit his site Canadian and U.S. Money to find great deals on Bank of Canada Paper Money plus other types of Canadian Currency.