History of Canadian currencies
history of currency in Canada
The history of Canadian currencies began with Indigenous peoples in Canada prior to European contact, when they used items such as wampum and furs for trading purposes. The Indigenous peoples continued to use those items as currency when trade with Europeans began. During the period of French colonization, coins were introduced, as well as one of the first examples of paper currency by a western government. During the period of British colonization, additional coinage was introduced, as well as banknotes. The Canadian colonies gradually moved away from the British pound and adopted currencies linked to the United States dollar. With Confederation in 1867, the Canadian dollar was established. By the mid-20th century, the Bank of Canada was the sole issuer of paper currency, and banks ceased to issue banknotes.
Canada began issuing its own coins shortly after Confederation. In the 20th century, Canada has issued many commemorative coins into circulation, temporarily replacing current coinage designs. There also exists a long history of numismatic coin issues.
“History of Canadian currencies” enters the record as history of currency in Canada. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what History, Canadian and currencies can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5775541. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1867.
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This entry incorporates text from “History of Canadian currencies” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.