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10 Dollars
| Issuer | Chartered Bank of India, Australia & China |
|---|---|
| Year | 1924-1929 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | The obverse is printed in red-brown on a pale underprint and carries the full bilingual title of the bank in English and Chinese characters across the top register. Two harbour vignettes flank the central text panel — a port scene to the left and a karst seascape to the right — while a royal coat of arms occupies the centre above the denomination legend TEN DOLLARS. Corner numerals and Chinese denomination characters 拾 appear at all four corners, and the date, serial number, and manuscript signatures of the Accountant and Manager are printed in the lower portion below a bold red HONG KONG overprint. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is printed in a single red-brown tone and centres on a large architectural vignette of a classical colonial building set amid tropical palms, framed by an elaborate guilloche border. Four corner medallions each contain a different emblematic vignette — a crown, a bull, an elephant, and a sailing vessel — with the Chinese numeral 拾 repeated between them. The full bank title is split between the top scroll THE CHARTERED BANK OF and the bottom legend INDIA, AUSTRALIA AND CHINA, with TEN DOLLARS in cartouches on the left and right margins. |
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| Comments |
The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China was one of the great British overseas exchange banks, chartered by royal warrant in 1853 and operating across the trade routes linking London to Hong Kong, Shanghai, Calcutta, and Singapore. Its dollar-denominated notes circulated not as legal tender in any formal sense but on the strength of the bank's own commercial reputation — accepted because merchants trusted the institution, not because any government compelled it.
Notes of this series were printed in London by Bradbury Wilkinson, a firm responsible for much of the high-quality intaglio work across British colonial currency during this period. The P#50 is scarce in any grade; the bank routinely cancelled and pulped returned notes rather than reissuing them.