More Old Money

After posting about "New Money",  a previous post titled "Old Money" was revisited and there were some great comments and feedback about the history of some of those old bills, prompting me to do a bit of additional research.

The engraving of the Queen's portrait was done by The British American Bank Note Company artist George Gundersen in 1952. The artwork was based on the official photo portrait taken by one of the Queen's official photographers, Peter Dirk Uys, and was scheduled to be printed on all bank notes produced in 1954.

Shortly after being put into circulation, a complaint was received by the Bank Of Canada regarding a "devil's face" loacted in the Queen's hair, as demonstrated within the circled area in the diagram above and shown on its' own below.

Conspiracy theories abounded and an investigation was launched, but no proof of a conspiracy was ever found and no charges were ever laid, however, a revised portrait was done, new bank notes were produced, and the offending bank notes were pulled from circulation and cancelled.

A basic internet showed there was no set value attached to the old, out of circulation "devil's face" bills but several of them appear for sale on e-Bay, with starting bids at USD $80 for a $20 bank note, so if you have a stash of old bills, it might be worthwhile sifting through them and having a look for this anomoly.