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    Security is in the bank note

    Security printing is a game of anticipating and responding to criminal threats. Counterfeiting is a game of anticipating and responding to bank note design. This cat and mouse relationship affects every aspect of a bank note.

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    Needs or wants? That is the question!

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The Devil is in the Hairdo

By: Graham Iddon


October 31, 2018

The 1954 note series

Have you ever seen eyes in the bark of trees? Wolves in the clouds? Faces watching you from the abstract patterns of your mother’s bedroom drapes? Although this is a Hallowe’en blog, I’m not talking about anything supernatural, here; I’m talking about shapes that can sometimes be seen in otherwise random images or patterns—such as in the design of a bank note, for instance.

Commemorative centennial $1 bank note from the 1954 series

You will find nothing unusual in this centennial commemorative version of the 1954 series, but in earlier versions… $1, Canada, 1967, NCC.1967.010.001

When the Bank of Canada creates a new bank note, one important step researchers take is to ask a focus group to have a really good look at a model of the new note. A fresh perspective is crucial here to find any unintended shapes in the imagery. If anything appears to protrude from a portrait subject’s ear, or if there are faces in the background patterns, it’s best that such things are pointed out before the note has been issued. Because it wouldn’t be the first time a curious shape has appeared on a bank note.

a colourful grid of eight bank notes, each featuring an image of a Canadian region

The vignettes of the 1954 series feature images from every major region of Canada.

As Canada headed confidently into the 1950s, it did so with new, modern, nationalistic bank notes designed by Canadian war artist Charles Comfort. A gorgeous landscape engraving filled the back of each note while our brand-new sovereign, Elizabeth II, was the star feature on the front of all eight denominations. Celebrated Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh took an official portrait of Elizabeth. She was then beautifully reproduced by master engraver George Gundersen of the British American Bank Note Company. The new bank notes were elegant and very Canadian.

black and white image of bank note engraver George Gundersen at work

George Gundersen, engraver and art director of the British American Bank Note Co., would go on to engrave three of the five portraits of the 1969–76 series. Bank of Canada Archives POS-003561

black and white portrait of Elizabeth in a tiara, 1951

The original Karsh portrait of Princess Elizabeth was retouched to remove her tiara for the bank note. Yousuf Karsh NCC.1993.056,146

However, there was something not quite right about the engraving of the Queen; something perhaps a little sinister. Reports began surfacing of people seeing shapes in her hair—specifically the face of the Devil! In 1956, a British politician named H. L. Hogg wrote a scathing letter to the High Commissioner for Canada in the United Kingdom:

“The Devil’s face is so perfect that for the life of me I cannot think it is there other than by the fiendish design of the artist who is responsible for the drawing or the engraver who made the plate…I enclose an envelope for the return of the note but I would be better pleased if you told me you had burned it.”

a Canadian $100 bank note from 1955 with detail showing the Devil’s face in the Queen’s hair

A “Devil’s Head” $100 bank note, circa 1955. The face has been enhanced slightly to make it clearer. $100, circa 1955, Canada, NCC.1987.030.002

References to the Devil’s head popped up now and again in the Canadian media from 1956 until as late as 1959. A prominent member of the coin collecting community claimed the face in the Queen’s hair was “no accident” and that, “those responsible might be trying to put across a subtle message to the public.” A number of newspapers picked up this story, spreading the idea that an insider had infiltrated the bank note printing firms. By that time, true or not, such comments would certainly have upped the interest of any “Devil’s Head” notes on the collector’s market.

All conspiracies of fiendish engravers aside, the Bank moved quickly to have the security printing companies deal with the issue. Engraver Yves Baril darkened the highlights in the Gundersen engraving and, after 1957, the series was entirely free of questionable images or of any faces but that of the Queen.

With no diabolical intention, Gundersen had actually done a remarkable job of reproducing the Karsh photograph as an engraving. The problem was that he was too good. If you take a good look at the Karsh photo and squint your eyes a bit, you can just discern above the Royal left ear some contours of hair that do resemble a face—these contours are then made clearer and arguably more demonic by the fine-lined, high-contrast etching of the engraver’s art.

an engraving of the Queen and the photograph it was reproduced from

The Karsh photo is on the left; the Gundersen engraving is on the right.

It would seem that Mr. Hogg should have directed his wrath not at the talented Mr. Gundersen, but at the Royal hairdresser. Unless, of course, there was a dark conspiracy involving the hairdresser, the photographer and the engraver…let me check online. Happy Hallowe’en.

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Content type(s): Blog posts

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April 3, 2014

Museum Reconstruction - Part 1

By: Graham Iddon


In early February, a small group from the Bank’s Communications Department booked a brief tour of the main floor and first basement at the Wellington Street head office. It’s still in the demolition phase of the renovation.
Content type(s): Blog posts
March 28, 2014

Notes from the Collection: Notgeld, Emergency Money from Interwar Europe

By: Patricia Measures


Notgeld, German for emergency money, first appeared at the beginning of World War One and was issued until 1924. Through these notes we can see the entire story of Germany’s experience with out-of-control inflation between the wars.
Content type(s): Blog posts
February 27, 2014

Notes From the Collection: Recent Acquisitions

By: Paul S. Berry


Before the Museum closed, and the Collection moved to Gatineau, the curators regularly hosted a show and tell session for staff to see new acquisitions. With the help of the Museum’s new blog, that tradition will continue; only now, you too will be able to see and learn about some of the brilliant new stars in the Collection. Get out your sunglasses!
Content type(s): Blog posts
February 14, 2014

We’re the Currency Museum, not the Mint

By: Graham Iddon


If we had a nickel for every time people asked questions like that, we’d have… Well, I suppose we have roughly that number of nickels already; we have a long history as a currency museum after all. When the museum was open, somebody would ask a similar question several times a week.
Content type(s): Blog posts
February 7, 2014

Notes from the Collection: Moving Forward

By: Raewyn Passmore


After four months in our new digs the Collections Team is starting to settle in. But even though most of the boxes have been unpacked there is still a lot of work to do. In 2014 we will be collaborating with the Exhibitions Team on travelling exhibits and coming up with ideas for the new museum space.
Content type(s): Blog posts
November 18, 2013

Notes from the Collection: A Buying Trip to Toronto

By: Paul S. Berry


Recently, from October 3 to 5th, collections staff were at the Toronto Coin Expo, held at the Toronto Reference Library on Yonge Street. The show boasts informative lectures, a large auction of coins, tokens and paper money as well as a showroom, called a bourse, where dealers greet clients and buy and sell material.
Content type(s): Blog posts
October 28, 2013

Director’s chair : A little help from our friends

By: Ken Ross


In one of my favourite cinematic moments, the 11 year-old chess prodigy, Josh Waitzkin, imagines sweeping the pieces off a chess board in order to help him think more clearly about an important game of chess. It is a championship game and he is on the brink of winning it all.
Content type(s): Blog posts
October 7, 2013

The Cases are Almost Empty

By: Graham Iddon


For the first time since they went into their cases in 1980, over 2000 coins, notes, beads and shells are coming back out. The Museum’s curatorial staff are busily pulling panels from cases, placing coins into specially prepared drawers and sliding notes into acid-free Mylar envelopes.
Content type(s): Blog posts
September 24, 2013

Curators Begin Removal of Artifacts

By: Graham Iddon


The doors were barely closed following Big Top Farewell event before Chief Curator Paul Berry and his team began emptying display cases that had been sealed shut since 1980. The biggest task involved removing more than 2500 bank notes from the room we knew as Gallery 8.
Content type(s): Blog posts
September 16, 2013

Notes from the Collection : 2013 RCNA Convention Winnipeg

By: David Bergeron


Another convention of the Royal Canadian Numismatic Association (RCNA) wrapped up in July. This year the convention was held in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It was the first time in over thirty years that the RCNA Convention made a stop there.
Content type(s): Blog posts
September 6, 2013

First Artifacts to Leave the Museum: And they were big

By: Graham Iddon


Before the museum closed for renovations on 2 July, technicians began to remove the heavier artifacts in late May. First to go was the strong box. Built of ¼” thick welded steel plates, this trunk was used by the Bank of Upper Canada in Toronto between 1821 and 1866.
Content type(s): Blog posts
August 30, 2013

Director’s chair : “I don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hello.”

By: Ken Ross


Most of us know the first part of Alexander Graham Bell’s take on opportunity: “When one door closes, another one opens…” What we often don’t recall is the second half of that quote, where he says: “…but we so often look so long and regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”
Content type(s): Blog posts
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