2 New Bills Came to Town

New bills in town! VIA Rail CEO Marc Lalibert茅 and Bank of Canada Deputy Governor Tiff Macklem launch the new $10 bill at Pacific Central Station.

On November 7, 2013, the last 2 bills in Canada's new Frontier polymer note series were launched into the world. In case you haven't already heard, the new $5 features the Canadarm2 (plus Dextre, the hand-like attachment for the arm), and the new $10 salutes our national railway, depicting The Canadian, a VIA passenger train winding through the mountains at Jasper National Park.

The date selected for the unveiling was rather historic, as it was the 128th anniversary of the CPR's last spike ceremony held at Craigellachie, BC back in 1885. The location was also fitting; Vancouver's Pacific Central Station, with a live link to the Canadian Space Agency in Saint-Hubert, Quebec. One of the special guests the Bank of Canada recruited for the event was none other than retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who spoke from Saint-Hubert.

After the unveiling of the notes, ample photo opps of the new bills, I got to ask the Bank of Canada my question; given my meme, I wanted to know if there was a single artist or illustrator responsible for each bill. Do the engraver's initials appear somewhere on the bill? The answer; well, it seems they don't make bills like they used to. They weren't so much drawn by a single individual as they were selected by a collective after extensive consultations. And they weren't really drawn either; it's more like they were 'composited' and then digitally 'remastered'. In fact, if you look closely at all the specimens that the Bank of Canada has posted to flickr, you can see they resemble photographs more than they do drawings or engravings.

The actual bills themselves do look more like a traditional engraved image, with all the fine microscopic lines and cross-hatching. All this was done digitally, allowing for . And I've learned from the Bank of Canada website that the portraits used on the front of the bills were all based on photographs from the Library and Archives Canada, with one exception. The Queen's portrait on the $20 bill was based on a photograph that the Bank of Canada commissioned just for this series.

After the official launch presentation, we were given a chance to get reintroduced to the railroad with a tour of The Canadian. As a train aficionado, I did not want to pass up the opportunity! VIA Rail recently gave their cars a complete makeover with new amenities and updated interiors, and they look fantastic! And in the near future, a whole new class of deluxe sleeper cars will join the fleet, with twice the amount of space! Now that's an upgrade! For all the train fans in the audience, I shall direct you . All aboard!

The bill and the train; the photo everyone was desperately trying to capture.

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