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10 Dollars
| Issuer | Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation |
|---|---|
| Year | 1904 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 180 x 110 mm |
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| Obverse description | Blue and pink note with a central vignette of the bank's heraldic coat of arms flanked by elaborate guilloche rosettes. The issuer's name, THE HONG KONG & SHANGHAI BANKING CORPORATION, arches across the top in bold letterpress, with Chinese characters 香港上海滙豐銀行 running along the upper margin. The denomination 10 appears in numeral form at all four corners alongside Chinese characters 拾圓, with the place and date of issue, Hong Kong, 1st May 1904, printed in the lower central field above the promise-to-pay legend and a manuscript signature over the titles CHIEF ACCT and CHIEF MANAGER. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Printed in brown-red intaglio on plain paper, the reverse centres on a large oval vignette of two classical allegorical figures — a standing helmeted female holding a spear and a seated male figure — set within a circular band bearing the full bank name THE HONG KONG & SHANGHAI BANKING CORPORATION. Two flanking oval medallions at left and right each bear a profile portrait of a helmeted classical female head, mirroring the allegorical theme, with the numeral 10 and Chinese character 拾 repeated at each corner. |
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| Comments |
The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation's early twentieth-century dollar notes were among the first in the region to be produced by Waterlow & Sons, whose intaglio work on this 1904 issue is noticeably finer than the earlier series handled by other contractors. HSBC held note-issuing authority in Hong Kong under colonial ordinance, one of only a handful of private banks permitted to circulate currency there — a privilege that persisted, in modified form, well into the twenty-first century.
P#157 is scarce at any grade. The 1904 date places it in the earliest documented stratum of the Waterlow-printed HSBC dollar series, and attrition from heavy commercial use in a tropical port environment has been severe.