50 Cents - Notation Fee Vital Statistics Act BC

British Columbia's Vital Statistics Act authorized the collection of small fees for the registration of births, deaths, and marriages — this 50-cent piece was a notation fee receipt coupon, not a circulating banknote in any conventional sense. The Province issued these as a way to standardize fee collection across rural registrars who might otherwise handle transactions inconsistently.

The faint green tint is characteristic of low-denomination provincial fiscal paper from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, chosen as much to deter ink-based alterations as for any aesthetic reason.