Earl Brown arrived in Vancouver on Friday on a journey more than half a century in the making.
He travelled more than 1,000 kilometres southwest from his home in Fort Nelson with one goal — to get B.C. Premier David Eby to sign his $1 Canadian bill.
“I’ve been working for 53 years now, to make this happen,” Brown said of getting all 13 premiers in that time span to sign his currency.
The now-defunct $1 bill was only missing Eby’s signature. Brown, 67, arranged to travel to Vancouver to meet up with Eby at Canada Place.
Brown’s journey began in 1971, at the age of 14. That’s when then-premier W.A.C. Bennett was in Fort Nelson, unveiling the government’s acquisition of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway, which became known as B.C. Rail. Brown, in attendance, asked him for a signature.
With nothing more appropriate to sign, Brown suggested the premier sign a $1 bill. Bennett pulled one out of his own pocket, signed it, and handed it to Brown.
“I remember someone said I … managed to get Bennett for a buck,” Brown said.
The second signature
W.A.C. Bennett was B.C.’s longest serving premier, from 1952 to 1972. That’s when Dave Barrett’s NDP defeated Bennett’s Social Credit Party. After the election, Barrett was in Fort Nelson and Brown made plans to acquire his second signature on the $1 bill.
“I was impressed he came up here, because this is not a particularly fond spot for the NDP,” Brown said about Barrett.
Brown’s father was sent to drive Barrett to an event celebrating winter trappers, so Brown asked his father to get the bill signed. Brown’s father came back with the signature and an additional $2 bill also adorned with Barrett’s autograph.
Since then, he’s managed to get the $1 bill signed by every subsequent premier while they were in office.
‘Premiers’ buck’
Brown calls his dollar bill his “premiers’ buck.”
“If it hadn’t been for poor planning on my part … nothing would have gone any farther,” he said about the novelty of the item. “If it was just an autograph book, I don’t think I would have hung on to it.”
In 1989, the last $1 bill was created in the country as Canada replaced the paper currency with loonies.
The last Canadian $1 bills roll off the presses in 1989 to make room for the dollar coin.
Nearly 50 years later, the bill is still in good shape, said Brown. “It’s holding up OK, but one doesn’t want to go ahead and be reckless with it.”
On Friday, Brown said he was pleased to have Eby mark the bill with his signature. He said all of the NDP premiers have signed on the left side of the bill.
“It was a heck of a lot of fun,” Brown said. “I now have that elusive 13th autograph.”
He said he’s got room to squeeze perhaps two more signatures on his premiers’ buck.
“This one was great, but we have an election coming up in the fall.”