I did learn a possible reason why the letter I was used as a third letter for about a decade.  It was initially mostly in BABN prefixes (though the CBN prefix GOI did get issued) and it was likely in an effort to make the BABN prefixes last longer, especially since $100 bills were greatly rising in demand and BABN was printing all of the $100s until 2004 when CBN started printing them.  It's likely that BABN prefixes were going through so fast, it would have likely been a few years before they reached printer letter D, which was a signal that CBN had to soon take over printing.

By the early 2000s, CBN took over using the letter I as a third letter, mostly for the $20 note. After the Journey series started, the letter I looked almost like a number 1, unlike in the latter Birds notes, though four Journey prefixes - BEI, EYI, FMI and EZI - did get issued. But after 2004, the letter I was retired as a third letter, and it may have been a sign that BABN was not doing well financially by that point, so using the letter I as a third letter was redundant since CBN had significant longevity with printer letters potentially going all the way to Z (we're a very long way from that point, and we will all be long deceased by the time the printer letters get to Z).

Letter I as a third letter was introduced in 1995 the same way my province, Newfoundland and Labrador, reinstated Q, U and Y on license plates fairly recently (those letters, along with I, were retired in 1985) due to car sales gaining momentum and the variety of prefixes going through so fast - using Q, U and Y was done to add more longevity to the license plates in an era of massive car sales, though "I" is still not used to date.

It turns out that 2024 saw the most counterfeit $5 bills in a single year.  Counterfeit $5 bills never saw such high numbers before, it seems.

Congratulations on your find!!! I have a note that was 1 number away from yours (5000001). I would say that's a early Christmas gift you got  .

OMG Archey, 

I am sooooo jealous!  Looks like Christmas in your house!!

Congrats, Breanna

Wow, you won the lottery, very nice

Found this in the wild today 

Stumbled across these stat sheets of the RCMP on Counterfeit Currency I thought others may find interesting:

https://rcmp.ca/en/forensic-science-and-identification-services/national-forensic-laboratory-services/statistics-pertaining-counterfeit-canadian-currency#t2

Great points Dean, i would pay for an annual subscription rather than the bulky expensive books now being published.  I only reference less than half the book anyways.  Good thinking Dean, Murray.

I agree with Dean, but my problem with the Charlton is the use of the Edition Numbers to indicate that changes have been made.  Currently, they up the edition number with each annual printing whether there are changes or not.  If they used edition numbers properly, and are simply going to copy the book page for page with NO changes, then change the year, but NOT the edition number.

Also/or, to indicate the location of where changes have occurred they could ad a Ver number beside each page number and if changes have been made to a single page then increase the ver number.

My other problem is that they don't update the prefixes that have been issued, or make corrections between printings, even when they have been known for years.  This is a biggie and what makes a purchaser feel even more 'ripped off' if they buy annually.

I don't think that's right. The 2025 edition came out in November 2024, which means the 2026 edition is already a little past due. Hopefully it'll be out very soon.

It is almost 2026 and Charlton still hasn't joined the 21st century; they are still operating on an antiquated business model of having to buy what is essentially the same book again and again. 

Because of the price, the fact that there are very few major changes year over year and my desire to cut down on clutter in my house, I am finding it increasingly difficult to justify the cost of a new physical Charlton catalogue even every other year.

The physical catalogue keeps increasing in size, not only because of the addition of new Bank of Canada prefixes, but the pages of commercial  advertisements at the front.

Personally, I have zero interest in Municipal Scrip and little to no interest in Province of Canada and, other than a few exceptions, Dominion of Canada notes so I rarely look at these pages in the catalogue.

It is undoubtedly more expensive for a company to publish a book with more physical pages, however if collectors are paying for this resource, they are forced to indirectly absorb the cost of adding the advertising pages to the catalogue.  It's like paying for a premium TV package with no ads, but then being subjected to them anyway.
Businesses who pay to include their ads in the catalogue may or may not benefit from having them in there; the only party that is guaranteed to profit from this arrangement is the Charlton Press.

With the abundance of information online, recent auction information from reputable auction houses and dealers that inform the pricing in the catalogue is readily available free of charge.

It would be interesting to see if the Charlton Press will consider other revenue streams such as:

1.  A digital catalogue option at a lower price point, renewable by subscription on an annual basis.
A digital catalogue would allow for real time updates to pricing tables and it would allow the catalogue to become more dynamic, like the "Trends" section of the Canadian Coin News paper.

2.  A loose leaf format where one could purchase the entire catalogue or only the desired sections.  Another advantage of a loose leaf format is that new additions and/or corrections could be sent out to subscribers as pdf's and printed at home, or sent from the publisher in hard copy at a slightly higher price point.

Of course, the likelihood of anything like this happening at the Charlton Press is slim to none, but it is worthy of some thought.

Dean