Catalog
1 Pound
| Issuer | Western Australian Bank |
|---|---|
| Year | ND (1910) |
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| Composition | Cotton paper |
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| Obverse description | Plain typeset note with ornate engraved border and guilloche vignettes at left and right reading ONE. Central text body bears the promise to pay ONE POUND Sterling at Perth, with serial number and date fields. Accountant and Manager signature lines appear at lower centre, with WESTERN AUSTRALIAN BANK across the top and PERTH at foot. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Unprinted back with a central elaborate guilloche medallion of interlocking lathe-work rosettes flanked by smaller circular ornaments, all in pale blue-grey intaglio on plain cream paper stock, with no text or additional vignettes. |
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| Comments |
The Western Australian Bank was established in 1841, making it one of the colony's earliest chartered banks, but it never achieved the scale of its eastern counterparts. This note dates to the period when private trading banks in Australia were still issuing their own currency — a practice that would effectively end with the Commonwealth Bank's consolidation of note issue, completed by 1910–11 under the Australian Notes Act of 1910.
Surviving examples of this issue are genuinely rare. The Western Australian Bank was absorbed by the Bank of Australasia in 1927, and redemption of outstanding private notes was handled without fanfare — most remaining stock was surrendered and destroyed.