Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1 Pound Sterling
| Issuer | Commercial Bank of Scotland Ltd. |
|---|---|
| Year | 1886 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Pound sterling (1694-date) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Blue and red note with a central allegorical vignette at the top showing classical figures in a horizontal tableau, flanked by oval denomination cartouches reading "ONE" at each upper corner. The issuer's title "THE COMMERCIAL BANK OF SCOTLAND LIMITED" is printed in bold letterpress across the centre, with the promise-to-pay text and a large red guilloche underprint bearing the words "ONE POUND" overlaid. The lower portion carries the place and date of issue "EDINBURGH 2nd April 1886", the authorisation line "By order of the Court of Directors", two manuscript signatures above their printed role titles, and a border inscription reading "INCORPORATED BY ROYAL CHARTER & ACT OF PARLIAMENT"; the top border carries "UNDER ACT 16 & 17 VICT. CAP. 63". |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | UNDER ACT 16 & 17 VICT. CAP. 63 ONE THE COMMERCIAL BANK OF SCOTLAND LIMITED Promise to pay the Bearer on demand ONE POUND Sterling at the Office here EDINBURGH 2nd April 1886 By order of the Court of Directors INCORPORATED BY ROYAL CHARTER & ACT OF PARLIAMENT |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
The Commercial Bank of Scotland was one of the Edinburgh-based joint-stock banks that fiercely defended its note-issuing rights throughout the nineteenth century — Scottish banking law, never harmonized with the Bank Charter Act of 1844, permitted authorized Scottish banks to continue issuing their own £1 notes long after English provincial banks lost that privilege entirely. This note dates from well into that protected period.
The Commercial Bank merged with the National Bank of Scotland in 1959, ending a note-issuing lineage stretching back to 1810. An 1886 example predates that merger by over seven decades and falls within the series before the bank's significant branch expansion of the early twentieth century tightened printing controls and standardized issue procedures more rigidly.