Security Engravers Presentation - C.G. Yorke

I have decided to do my presentation on a great Canadian engraver, Charles Gordon Yorke. I am from Canada and thought it would be neat to look into some more of the great notes that we have here in the north. Here is a picture of Yorke engraving the 1973 $1 reverse logging scene image.



Charles Gordon Yorke was born in Saskatchewan, Canada in 1917 and died in 1980. Towards the end of his life a central nervous system disease put him in a wheel chair. Yorke got an early start on engraving and attended the Ontario College of Art. In 1935 he was able to attain an apprenticeship at BABNCo. The very first note he engraved was the 1954 $5. He only engraved the reverse image of the Otter Falls off of the Alaska Highway for this note. Below is a picture of the note.



Yorke also had a huge part in 1969-79 series, engraving reverses for the $1 and $2, and engraving both the portraits and reverses of the $5 and $100. Below is the $1 from 1973. The reverse image is the Parliament buildings with logging scene on the Ottawa River. This is the note that Yorke is seen engraving in the initial picture in this presentation.



Also from this series was the 1974 $2 note. This banknote has an Inuit hunting scene on the reverse that was engraved by Yorke. Below is a picture of the note.



Yorke also engraved many Canadian postage stamps. Some of these include the First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight, Sir William Osler, and Samuel Hearne. (As shown below)

 

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Very nice.

So that first note he engraved, isn't that that demon hair note?

 

Nice presentation north49guy! Really lovely examples. I'm glad to see the inclusion of stamps as well since I'm sure these security engravers never felt exclusively engravers of notes, unless there were those who solely did notes.

 

Excellent presentation! Nice to see information on notes that I grew up with.:smile

 

It is, although mine (pictured) is the modified variety. Yorke was not the one that engraved the Queen though so he was not part of the controversy thankfully. This incident was addressed in urbanchemist's presentation about Yves Baril found here.

 

Yep that's how I learned about it.
Thanks

 

Very nice presentation . The $5 Otter Falls is beautiful As well as all the other works he did including the stamps.He did not let his handicap impeded him as a great security engraver obviously.

 

Great presentation, thank you! I often have thought that if I started up another collection it would be topical, with animals and general out-doors-y themes. I'm sure many notes from Canada would be in it.

Dave

 

Excellent !! I enjoyed the read

 

Thanks for the comments all! I'm glad you enjoyed!

 

Steve ~ Great informative presentation! Thank you for sharing your research with the group!

Best Regards ~ Darryl

 

Terrific presentation. I really enjoyed it. I have examples of the $1 and $2 notes in my collection but haven't seen the $5 note before. Stamps are beautiful too.

 

Dave: J&J Coins in Pueblo, Colorado have an Animal Money category on their site which includes a lot of modern world notes.

 

Dammit!

Thanks for the link Krispy :thumb:

Dave

 

LOL! Sure, no problem.

 

Thumbs up!

 

Steve:

Very nice job on the Presentation.. 10 :thumb: up on this one!
Sorry for the late reply..I have not been feeling to well.


RickieB

 

Thanks guys...and hope you feel better Rick!

 

And another great exaqmple of our members interest!! Steve what a nice job you did on this presentation..Bravo!!

So come on folks, we know you are interested..say hello to the group and join in on the Great experience of Security Engravings and the people behind them.

RickieB

 

That's pretty cool Steve. Gordon was my Grandfather. He was a huge outdoorsman and spent most of his free time fishing and hunting.