Catalog
1 Pound Planters Bank
| Issuer | Planters' Bank of Jamaica |
|---|---|
| Year | 1844 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Reference(s) | P#S211 |
| Obverse description | Uniface note with a vignette of Britannia seated at left accompanied by a lion, a central upper vignette of farmers with cattle, and an allegorical female figure with agricultural produce at right. The letterpress text bears the full promise-to-pay legend with the issuer's title and place of payment at Kingston, Jamaica. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Reverse is uniface and left blank, consistent with the printing practice of this issue; the aged paper shows fold lines and surface wear but carries no printed design or text. |
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| Comments |
The Planters' Bank of Jamaica was one of several colonial private banks competing for commercial dominance on the island during the 1840s, a period when Jamaican plantation agriculture was in serious structural decline following the end of apprenticeship in 1838. Credit was scarce, sugar revenues were falling, and banknotes from private issuers were treated with varying degrees of public confidence depending on the perceived solvency of the institution behind them.
John Scott of Glasgow was a minor but competent provincial printer — not one of the major security printing houses — which makes his work on colonial banknote commissions a relatively unusual assignment. The Planters' Bank itself did not survive the broader collapse of Jamaican private banking that accelerated through the late 1840s.