Bank of Canada Museum

The Bank of Canada Museum (since July 2017), formerly known as Canada’s Currency Museum, opened in 1980 on the ground floor of the Bank of Canada building in Ottawa. Temporarily closed in 2013 for major building renovations, the museum reopened in a new space on July 1, 2017, in a new building, with a completely new design and concept. It is, however, connected to the main building through the Bank of Canada’s underground conference centre. The museum used to be the public face of the National Currency Collection, which contains over 100000 currency-related artifacts from around the world. These include coins, banknotes, dies, plates, and engraving tools, bank and government ledgers, weights and scales, cash registers, wallets, numismatic medals and cards and examples of counterfeit money. This collection was on display until 2013, and currently, most of it is in storage and is not available to visitors. The National Currency Collection also encompasses a library and archive, which contain over 8,500 books, pamphlets, catalogues and journals dating back to the Middle Ages. The Museum offers various educational programs for school groups and the general public, in both English and French.