4 Dollars = 20 Shillings

The Banque du Peuple was a Montreal cooperative credit institution founded in 1844 primarily to serve French-Canadian merchants and artisans who found themselves systematically excluded from credit at the English-dominated banks. The dual denomination — four dollars and twenty shillings simultaneously — reflects the genuinely awkward monetary reality of pre-Confederation Canada, where Halifax currency, York currency, and U.S. dollars all circulated in parallel, and a bank issuing only one denomination unit risked alienating half its customer base.

Toppan, Carpenter & Co. of Philadelphia was among the most respected security printers in North America at the time, later absorbed into the American Bank Note Company in 1858.