Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
10 Shillings Bank of New South Wales
| Issuer | Bank of New South Wales |
|---|---|
| Year | 1919-1921 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Pound (1840-1967) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Central vignette of a seated allegorical female figure at upper centre, accompanied by a sailing ship, a cornucopia, and sheep, symbolising commerce and pastoral prosperity. The note carries extensive letterpress text including the promise to pay ten shillings sterling on demand at Wellington, N.Z., dated 1st September 1919, over a guilloche underprint. Repeated denominational inscriptions and the issuing bank's title frame the design in the characteristic style of early twentieth-century private bank issues. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse carries circular guilloche vignettes positioned in the corners, forming a symmetrical decorative border arrangement typical of private bank note printing of the early twentieth century. The central field is relatively plain, with the corner medallions providing the principal ornamental structure. The overall design reflects the restrained engraved style associated with the Charles Skipper & East printing house. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
The Bank of New South Wales was the oldest trading bank in Australia, and by the time this note was issued the institution had been operating for over a century — yet private banknote issue in Australia was already a dying practice. The Commonwealth Bank had been issuing its own notes since 1913, and the 1910 Australian Notes Act had effectively pushed private banks out of the low-denomination paper currency business by imposing a prohibitive ten-percent tax on their own issues. The survival of this series into 1921 is somewhat anomalous given that regulatory climate.
Skipper & East's work for colonial and dominion banks was prolific in this period, and the plates show it — competent intaglio work, but produced to a commercial house standard rather than a central bank one.