Canadian-designed banknote top o’ the world
New Zealand $5 bill featuring explorer Sir Edmund Hillary wins banknote group honour
With the help of Sir Edmund Hillary, Canada’s banknote company has climbed its way to the top.
The explorer, famous for his 1953 ascent of Mount Everest, scales the side of New Zealand’s $5 bill, awarded Banknote of the Year 2015 by the International Banknote Society (IBNS) Tuesday. The Canadian Banknote Company designed and printed the bill.
“We’re quite pleased and proud,” said Michael Delich, vice-president of marketing for the company, which is also responsible for Canada’s currency. “It’s been a really productive and close collaboration with the (Reserve Bank of New Zealand).”
The note is part of New Zealand’s “Brighter Money” series — a redesign by the Canadian Banknote Company of the country’s paper money. It hadn’t been upgraded in more than 10 years, Delich says.
Like Canada’s currency, New Zealand’s $5 note is made of polymer. It’s a vivid depiction of folklore, fauna and flora rendered in “stunning orange and brown,” as the IBNS said in a press release.
A squinting profile of Hillary, presumably looking into the sun, appears before a background of South Island’s Mount Cook (Aoraki). On its back, purple daisies sprout out of a mountainous bay off Campbell Island as a hoiho (yellow-eyed penguin) looks on.
Security features are incorporated into several of its designs, including a “gorgeous polymer window” with a holographic penguin. Next to it is a red and yellow Maori kaokao-patterned Tukutuku panel.
“I mean it is absolutely gorgeous,” said International Banknote Society member George LaBarre, who has collected and dealt paper money and coins among other things for 42 years and is based in Boston.
Founded in 1961, the IBNS says its goal is to “promote, stimulate, and advance the study and knowledge of worldwide banknotes and paper cur- rencies.” It has 2,000 members in 90 countries, who have the opportunity to help choose its annual Banknote of the Year.
The bill was one of 20 other nominated banknotes from countries representing four continents (Europe, Asia, South America and Africa). They included China’s100 yuan note, Russia’s 100 ruble note, Syria’s 10,000 pound note, Gambia’s 100 dalasis note and Sweden’s 20 kronor note.
“On a scale of one to 10, it’s pretty close to a 10,” LaBarre said. “I would love to buy a hundred of this note right now because it would certainly rank in my top 100 notes of all time.”
New Zealand’s $5 and $10 notes were released in October and the $20, $50 and $100 bills will launch in the middle of May, completing the series.
Delich said the project to design the note began in November 2013, after it won Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s request for proposals.
The Canadian company also designed Canada’s polymer “Frontier” banknotes, of which the $20 was awarded best banknote of the year in 2004.
Noting the rising beauty in banknote design, LaBarre said, “It’ll be a sad day when paper money is totally eliminated, as some predict.”