Catalog
10 Dollars
| Issuer | Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China |
|---|---|
| Year | 1881-1887 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Dollar (1845-1939) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Printed entirely in blue, the reverse is dominated by an elaborate arrangement of concentric guilloche lathe-work forming a large central oval medallion, flanked symmetrically by two smaller circular guilloche rosettes on each side, all carrying strong anti-counterfeiting geometric patterns. The denomination numeral "10" appears within the outermost flanking rosettes at left and right. The printer's imprint "Perkins, Bacon & Co. London" is lettered in small text at the base of the central medallion. |
| Reverse lettering | 10 Perkins, Bacon & Co. London |
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| Comments |
The Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China was one of the exchange banks — not a colonial government institution — that underwrote trade finance across the British commercial empire. Its notes circulated primarily in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and the treaty ports, competing directly with issues from the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China. The bank had already survived one serious crisis, the 1866 Overend Gurney collapse, which wiped out several of its competitors.
Perkins, Bacon printed the plates using their steel intaglio process, the same technology they applied to postage stamps — a deliberate choice by issuing banks trying to stay ahead of forgers in markets where official currency supervision was thin.
The bank was absorbed into the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China in 1893, making this series orphaned within six years of its last issue date.