The 1937 Canadian banknote series is the second series of banknotes of the Canadian dollar issued by the Bank of Canada. The banknotes were issued into circulation on 19 July 1937,[1] at which time the Bank of Canada began gradually removing banknotes from the 1935 series from circulation.[2] The $1000 banknote was issued several years later, as it was primarily used by chartered banks, which had a sufficient supply of the 1935 Series $1000 banknote.[3]
This was the first series of bilingual Canadian banknotes,[4] as the 1935 Series was a dual-language series with French banknotes issued in Quebec and English banknotes issued in the rest of Canada.[2] This series was created because of the introduction of the Bank of Canada Act, which required Canadian banknotes to be bilingual.[5] In this series, English was always on the left. The 1937 banknote series was followed by the 1954 Canadian Landscape series.
With the exception of the $50 and $1000 notes, the colours introduced to the notes on this series remain to this day (or until they were no longer produced).