Catalog
1 Pound
| Issuer | States of Guernsey |
|---|---|
| Year | 1913 |
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| Printer | Perkins, Bacon & Petch (Perkins, Bacon and Co.), United Kingdom (1820-1935) |
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| Obverse description | Black on red underprint. The word ONE appears in each of the four corners, with THE STATES OF GUERNSEY inscribed in the top and bottom margins and GUERNSEY running vertically in the left and right margins. A vignette of St. Sampson harbour occupies the upper centre, flanked on either side by a prefix-over-letter serial number separated by a dash followed by a four-digit numeral. Below the vignette, the printed date of issue appears at centre-right, the main promissory text occupies the centre field, and two manuscript signatures are placed at lower left and lower right above the denomination in words. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | The States of Guernsey Guernsey PROMISE to pay the BEARER on demand ONE POUND value received by authority of the states ONE POUND |
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| Comments |
Guernsey's first modern government note issue, and one of the few cases where a Channel Island administration bypassed any bank entirely and issued paper currency directly through its own treasury from the outset. Perkins, Bacon & Petch — better known for producing stamps and securities across the British Empire — brought their intaglio expertise to the job, which shows in the quality of the engraving relative to what most small jurisdictions were issuing at the time.
The 1913 date places this note right at the edge of WWI, after which Guernsey's note-issuing accelerated sharply to address the wartime coin shortage.