Catalog
1 Pound
| Issuer | Bahamas Government |
|---|---|
| Year | 1869 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 1 Pound |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Black letterpress print on a light-blue guilloche underprint, with red serial numbers applied separately. A light-blue official seal is positioned at the upper left, alongside the central text block carrying the full legal and treasury authority inscriptions. The note bears a formal, document-style layout consistent with mid-nineteenth-century colonial treasury issues. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse is essentially unprinted, presenting a plain aged paper surface with no engraved or typeset design elements, typical of early colonial treasury notes of this period where the reverse was left blank as issued. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
The Bahamas Government was among the earliest British colonial administrations to issue its own paper currency rather than relying entirely on imported British notes or local private bank issues. This 1869 pound predates the more familiar Bahamas Government series of the twentieth century by decades and belongs to a period when colonial treasury notes were genuinely uncommon instruments — printed in small quantities, circulated among a small population, and rarely surviving intact.
Major & Knapp were a New York lithographic firm better known for commercial work than currency printing, which places this issue outside the usual lineage of security printers like Perkins Bacon or De La Rue. Whether that choice reflected cost, logistics, or colonial indifference to security features is not recorded.