10 Dollars

Canada's first federally issued banknotes — the 1935 series — replaced a patchwork of chartered bank currency that had been the country's de facto paper money for over a century. The Bank of Canada Act of 1934 gave the new central bank its mandate, and this series launched with both English and French versions of each denomination printed simultaneously, a bilingual commitment that was politically deliberate and logistically complex.

Osborne was the Bank's first Deputy Governor; Towers its first Governor, appointed at just 37. Their signatures on this inaugural series carry some weight beyond formality.