10 Shillings

Australia's first federally issued banknotes entered circulation in 1913, replacing the notes of private trading banks whose right to issue currency was extinguished by the Australian Notes Act 1910. The political fight behind that legislation was considerable — private banks resisted hard, and the Commonwealth's decision to absorb note issuance was as much about revenue as it was about monetary control. The new government collected the seigniorage profit that had previously flowed to commercial institutions.

Thomas Sterry Harrison, the first Commonwealth Note Printer, produced this series entirely in Melbourne — a deliberate assertion of domestic printing capability at a time when most colonial currency had been printed in London. The 1913 date on P#1A notes places them in the first year of issue, before the minor plate revisions that distinguish later printings in the series.