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1 Pound City of Glasgow Bank
| Issuer | City of Glasgow Bank |
|---|---|
| Year | 1857 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Printed in black ink by intaglio and letterpress, the note carries bold denomination text ONE POUND at upper left and right flanking a central equestrian statue vignette set on a plinth. The bank title THE CITY OF GLASGOW BANK appears in a prominent guilloche-bordered panel across the centre, above a script promise-to-pay text set against a fine repetitive underprint of the words 'One Pound'. At the lower centre, a seated female allegorical figure holding a shield vignette divides the two manuscript signature panels, with the authority legend PURSUANT TO ACT 16 & 17 VICTORIA CAP. 63 across the top margin. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | PURSUANT TO ACT 16 & 17 VICTORIA. CAP. 63. ONE POUND ONE POUND Glasgow, 1st May 1857 THE CITY OF GLASGOW BANK Promise to pay the Bearer on demand ONE POUND Sterling At the Company's Office here By order of the Directors No B 239/230 |
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| Comments |
The City of Glasgow Bank failed catastrophically in October 1878 — one of the worst banking collapses in Scottish history — but this note predates that disaster by over two decades. The bank operated on unlimited liability, meaning its shareholders were personally ruined when the fraud was exposed; many lost everything. Notes from the pre-failure years circulated freely across the west of Scotland, trusted without question.
Maclure & Macdonald were a Glasgow lithographic firm, not a specialist security printer, which occasionally shows in the finer register work on surviving examples.