Stack’s Bowers is putting a major group of Canadian banknotes in the spotlight this December, with nearly 300 lots crossing the block in a dedicated Canadian session of its December 2025 World Collectors Choice Online Auction.
The offering spans early provincial and chartered issues through Dominion of Canada notes and modern Bank of Canada material, along with errors and special serial numbers. The Canadian banknote session is now open for viewing and advance bidding at stacksbowers.com, with live online bidding set to begin Dec. 2 at 9 a.m. PT.
Canada consignment director Adem Karisik said the session is designed to appeal both to type collectors and to specialists chasing specific varieties. “It is a very well-balanced offering, with material for collectors who are building type sets as well as those focused on specialty areas,” he said, adding that several notes in the sale “simply do not come to market very often.” Highlights from the chartered section include a specimen $5 note dated Jan. 5, 1890, from the Merchants Bank of Halifax, graded PMG Choice Uncirculated-64 EPQ, from the institution that later became the Royal Bank of Canada, and a scarce $1 from the Union Bank of Prince Edward Island dated March 1, 1875, in PMG Choice Fine-15 and tied for finest-known for that type.
Branch-bank material adds another dimension, led by a seldom-seen Bank of Nova Scotia £1 note issued for the bank’s Jamaican operations and dated Feb. 1, 1930. Certified PMG Extremely Fine-40 EPQ, it is described as fully original and is believed to be the finest-graded example of its catalogue number. Estimates for these early chartered and branch notes range from the low four figures into the low five figures, with Karisik pointing to the Union Bank of Prince Edward Island $1 as one of the key pieces in the chartered section given how few notes from that bank are recorded in total.
Dominion issues form another pillar of the offering. An 1870 $2 front proof featuring generals James Wolfe and Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, graded PMG Choice Uncirculated-63 and offered from the Jerry and Diane Fishman Collection, leads that group, alongside a related lot of five back vignettes and proofs showing several different issuing cities, including the scarcer Victoria, St. John and Halifax combinations. A 1924 $5 Dominion note bearing Queen Mary, in PMG Choice Very Fine-35, also stands out; although dated May 26, 1924, the notes were not printed until 1931 and were released only shortly before the 1935 Bank of Canada issue replaced the Dominion series, leaving a relatively small survival rate compared to the original two million printed.
Modern-era and fancy-number collectors will likely focus on a 1954 $100 Bank of Canada note with a solid “5” serial number and the Beattie–Rasminsky signature combination, graded PMG Choice Uncirculated-64 EPQ. Karisik noted that only a handful of prefix combinations in the 1954 $100 series could produce solid serials and that banks did not routinely save such notes, leaving most surviving examples to be discovered in circulation. High-grade, fully original solid-number notes of this denomination and series are considered especially elusive, and the example in this sale is one of the headline modern pieces.
Full lot descriptions, images and live bidding access for the Stack’s Bowers December Canadian session are available at stacksbowers.com. Karisik can be contacted by email at akarisik@stacksbowers.com or by telephone at 604-363-8712.