10 Pounds National Bank of New Zealand Limited

The National Bank of New Zealand Limited was incorporated in London in 1872 and began issuing notes almost immediately upon establishing branches in the colony. Perkins, Bacon & Petch had long supplied security printing to British colonial banking operations, and their intaglio work on this series reflects that institutional familiarity — the plates were engraved in London for a bank whose board sat in London, serving customers twelve thousand miles away.

Ten-pound notes in any 1870s New Zealand private bank series are genuinely scarce survivors. High-denomination notes circulated among merchants and wool exporters, not households, and were typically settled and cancelled rather than held.