1 Guinea National Bank of Scotland

Perkins, Bacon & Petch introduced steel-plate engraving to British banknote production in the early 1820s, a direct challenge to the copper-plate tradition then dominant among Scottish issuers. The National Bank of Scotland, founded only in 1825, adopted this technology from the outset — this note is among the earliest issued by the bank, quite possibly from its opening year of operation.

The guinea denomination itself was already an anachronism by 1825, surviving in Scottish banking practice long after it had disappeared from English issue. Scotland retained it partly through commercial convention and partly because guinea-denominated accounts remained common in professional and agricultural transactions north of the border.