100 Dollars

Mercantile Bank Limited was a British overseas bank with roots in the old Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China — by the late 1950s it operated primarily across Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, issuing notes under colonial banking arrangements that were already running out of time. This $100 note falls within the final years of that issuing authority; the bank was acquired by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in 1959, and note-issuing privileges for institutions of this type were progressively curtailed through the early 1960s.

Waterlow & Sons had a long track record with colonial and overseas bank commissions before their merger into De La Rue in 1961, making this among the last notes they produced before that absorption.