Catalog
1 Pound Guernsey Commercial Banking Company
| Issuer | Guernsey Commercial Banking Company |
|---|---|
| Year | 1908 |
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| Composition | Paper |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | GUERNSEY COMMERCIAL BANKING COMPANY. / We Promise to Pay the Bearer on Demand ONE POUND Value received. / Guernsey 2nd Jan., 1908. / For the GUERNSEY COMMERCIAL BANKING COMPANY. / One Pound |
| Reverse description | Plain unprinted reverse. |
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| Comments |
The Guernsey Commercial Banking Company was a short-lived institution that operated under a precarious legal position — Guernsey's banking laws through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were loosely enough framed that private note issue persisted long after it had been extinguished in most of the British Isles. By 1908 this was already an anachronism, the private bank of issue surviving on Channel Island legal autonomy rather than any commercial logic.
Perkins, Bacon & Petch were the dominant security printers of the period, their intaglio work recognizable for its fine engine-turned backgrounds. The company had been printing banknotes and postage stamps since the 1820s and their Channel Island output spans several issuers across Jersey and Guernsey.
P#S171 is among the later dated examples from this issuer before the bank wound down its note-issuing operations entirely.