BANK OF VICTORIA LIMITED
ONE POUND
Melbourne
I promise to pay the Bearer on demand the Sum of ONE POUND value received
FOR THE BANK OF VICTORIA LIMITED
Manager
The Bank of Victoria was one of the longer-surviving colonial banks, but it did not survive the federation era intact. By 1910 it had been absorbed into the Commercial Bank of Australia, making notes issued in this terminal period genuinely transitional objects — struck on the authority of an institution already in the process of ceasing to exist as an independent entity.
Australian private banknote issues effectively ended with the Australian Notes Act of 1910, which gave the Commonwealth government a monopoly on currency issuance and imposed a prohibitive tax on private bank notes still in circulation. This note sits right at that cutoff.
The Bank of Victoria was one of the longer-surviving colonial banks, but it did not survive the federation era intact. By 1910 it had been absorbed into the Commercial Bank of Australia, making notes issued in this terminal period genuinely transitional objects — struck on the authority of an institution already in the process of ceasing to exist as an independent entity.
Australian private banknote issues effectively ended with the Australian Notes Act of 1910, which gave the Commonwealth government a monopoly on currency issuance and imposed a prohibitive tax on private bank notes still in circulation. This note sits right at that cutoff.