10 Pounds Asiatic Banking Corporation

The Asiatic Banking Corporation was founded in London in 1863 with ambitions across the China trade routes and Indian Ocean ports. It collapsed in 1866, a casualty of the same Overend, Gurney & Co. banking panic that wiped out dozens of British overseas finance houses — meaning this 1865 note was issued and withdrawn within a three-year window.

Smith, Elder & Co. was primarily a publishing house that maintained a sideline in high-quality commercial printing; their banknote work was always a minor part of the operation. The corporation's total lifespan was so brief that surviving paper is genuinely rare.