100 Dollars = 25 Pounds

Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Co. were the dominant bank note engravers in North America through the mid-nineteenth century, handling paper for dozens of chartered banks before eventually merging into the American Bank Note Company in 1858 — which gives a useful terminus ante quem for this issue. The dual denomination pairing of dollars and pounds reflects the practical reality of Canadian commerce in the pre-Confederation period, when sterling and Halifax currency both circulated alongside U.S. dollar values, and merchants required notes legible in either system.

The Bank of Montreal, chartered in 1817, was the oldest and most influential chartered bank in British North America. Notes from this series are genuinely scarce; survival rates for nineteenth-century Canadian chartered bank paper are low across the board, but pre-1850 Montreal issues were subject to repeated redemption drives that eliminated most examples in circulated grades.