10 Dollars - Sears Gift Certificate

Sears Canada turned to the Canadian Bank Note Company — a security printer whose primary clients were the Bank of Canada and foreign sovereigns — to produce its gift certificate stock in the 1990s. The choice was deliberate: CBN's intaglio capability and serialization infrastructure made counterfeiting a retailer certificate meaningfully difficult, a real concern after several high-profile gift card fraud schemes circulated through North American retail chains during that decade.

The 178 × 83 mm format matches the physical footprint of a standard banknote more closely than most retail scrip of the period — an intentional alignment that reinforced the certificate's transactional legitimacy at point of sale.