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50 Dollars
| Issuer | Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation |
|---|---|
| Year | 1901 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Hong Kong Dollar (1863-date) |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | THE HONG KONG & SHANGHAI BANKING CORPORATION 香港上海滙豐銀行 HONG KONG 1ST JANUARY 1901 PROMISES TO PAY THE BEARER ON DEMAND AT ITS OFFICE HERE FIFTY DOLLARS OR THE EQUIVALENT IN THE CURRENCY OF THE ISLAND, VALUE RECEIVED By Order of the Board of Directors CHIEF MANAGER 拾伍 伍拾圓 |
| Reverse description | The reverse is printed in red-brown and centres on a classical allegorical vignette of a seated female figure accompanied by a bust sculpture, urns, and various attributes of commerce and learning, rendered in fine intaglio engraving. Large guilloche rosettes occupy the left and right fields, with the denomination numeral 50 repeated in each corner and bilingual value characters 拾伍 in the lateral panels. The issuer's abbreviated name HONG KONG & SHANGHAI appears at the top and BANKING CORPORATION in a panel at the foot of the central vignette. |
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| Comments |
The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation's early twentieth-century dollar notes occupied a peculiar legal position: HSBC held one of three note-issuing privileges in Hong Kong under the 1895 banking ordinance, and its notes circulated as de facto legal tender despite never carrying that formal designation. The 1901 date places this squarely in the period when the Bank was printing its own notes through Waterlow & Sons in London, shipping completed sheets to Hong Kong for signature and issue.
Hand-signed by authorized bank officers at the point of issue, with the signatures themselves now a primary means of narrowing the precise issue window within the series. Pick 152 is among the earliest surviving HSBC Hong Kong notes catalogued with any regularity.