1 Pound 1 Shilling

The Merchants' Bank of Halifax was a Nova Scotia-chartered institution that expanded aggressively into central Canada during the 1870s, opening agencies across Ontario and Quebec. Hamilton was one of those agency points, and notes issued there carried the local agency designation rather than the Halifax head office imprint — a common practice for Canadian chartered banks operating branch networks under the 1871 Bank Act.

The denomination itself is the curiosity. One pound one shilling — a guinea — was an archaic unit even by 1880, a holdover from pre-Confederation accounting habits that lingered in Maritime banking culture long after Canada's decimal dollar system took formal effect in 1858. ABNC printed for numerous Canadian chartered banks during this period from their Manhattan facilities.