10 Pounds English - Afrikaans

The de Kock signature series of high-denomination Reserve Bank notes occupies an interesting transitional moment: M.H. de Kock served as Governor from 1945 to 1962, and notes bearing his name span the shift from a Union still operating under sterling conventions to one pressing hard toward the Republic. The £10 was a significant sum in circulation terms — roughly equivalent to several weeks' wages for many South Africans — and these notes saw relatively limited handling by the general public.

Bradbury Wilkinson's New Malden facility was responsible for much of the Commonwealth's quality note production during this period, and their intaglio work on the South African high-value series is characteristically tight. The watermark security on this issue is the primary anti-counterfeiting measure — no metallic thread was incorporated, which by the late 1950s was already beginning to look dated against contemporary European note design.

The series was rendered obsolete when South Africa decimalized in February 1961, replacing pounds with Rand at a two-to-one conversion.