Canada being a smallish
nation, economically and in population, its banknotes have not attracted much
attention in the international collecting community. Personally, I
feel it is partly because the banknotes have been extremely boring and
unattractive even to its citizens, so much so the collecting fraternity remained
cliquey and old, until the Bird issues were in the full swing around early 90s.
In the 70s, by design or coincidence, Canadian banknote designs did
begin to change. First came what was called multi-color series,
which established the colors of different denominations. Those
colour patterns are still being followed into the Journey series, i.e. blue for
$5, purplish/pinkish $10, green $20, red $50 and brown $100 . The
effigies on each denomination were also established in the same series and
followed, although there have been suggestions that some of them, especially the
Queen, should be replaced by Canadian artists, scientists or other more worthy
figures, as are done in more and more nations' banknotes. During
this period (1971 to 2005), there have been 4 distinct series, namely,
Multi-coloured ( 70s to mid-80s); short-lived 1979 all numeric,(only in $5
and $20); Bird ( from mid-80s to 2000) and the current Journey series
( 2001-). The new improved Journey series, however, make the
beloved 'unc' thing of the past, because of the curvy security
thread.
These
pages are personal attempts to record all the prefixes and changeovers,-- which
are public knowledge anyway,-- in the modern series starting from 1969 $20
notes, thus gives a complete picture for those who are interested. ( 1967
centennial $1 note is excluded because it still carried the 1954 design.)
I also try to highlight, by colour or bold font, the changeovers
and the scarcity of certain prefixes or varieties, which drive this hobby and
the investors. I also take the opportunity to express some of my
more moderate personal opinions. What is not covered are the errors
(misprints or mismatch, etc.), simply because they are too numerous.
As an
afterthought, to make this all-in-one site 'more' complete, I also include, at
the last part of the pages, a table of statistics which are gleaned from the
good old Charlton Catalogue.
Not a
meticulous person, I am sure there are many typos in numbers & totals; in
which case, I hope I will be told so that errors could be corrected.
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