10 Dollars

The Bank of Montreal's 1931 series was issued during a period of severe economic contraction, and denominations like this ten-dollar note circulated in a country where bank failures south of the border were making Canadians acutely nervous about paper currency generally. Canada's chartered banks, unlike their American counterparts, weathered the Depression without mass collapse — partly due to branch banking regulations that spread risk in ways the unit-banking system in the U.S. could not.

The Canadian Bank Note Company had been printing chartered bank issues from Ottawa since its formation in 1897, and by 1931 had effectively consolidated most of that business away from American security printers. Pick 554 is the standard reference for this issue, though date and signature varieties within the broader 1931 Bank of Montreal series repay closer attention.