Paper Surprise.

I got a nice surprise this afternoon.  I dropped into the Centre at Circle and 8th Dollarama to buy a couple of things.  I paid with a ten, and in return got back a 2006 series five dollar bill.  When I expressed surprise at this the clerk mentioned he'd seen recently seen a twenty from the previous series of bills.  The 2006 series were a slightly modified version of the 2002 series bills, incorporating a new holographic stripe on the front, and gold metallic "dashes" on the back, to deter counterfeiting.  They were the last Canadian fives printed on paper, being replaced by polymer bills in 2013.

Besides the surprise of it actually being a paper bill this late in the day the bill itself is in terrific condition for its age.  The paper is still very crisp, there's little creasing, and it's very clean.  This all makes me wonder where this thing has been all these years.  Has it been sitting in someone's personal stash?  Did it come out of the bottom of a cash drawer, or the safe of some business?  It's a reasonable guess it didn't come from a bank, since they're supposed to return any paper bills to the Bank of Canada for disposal.  There's no way to find out of course.