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100 Dollars Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China - Post Bill
| Issuer | Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China |
|---|---|
| Year | 1860 |
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| Value | 100 Dollars |
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| Obverse description | At the left, the British Royal Coat-of-Arms vignette — surmounted by a crown and flanked by a lion and unicorn — bears the legend 'INCORPORATED BY ROYAL CHARTER'. The bank title 'Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China' and the designation 'POST BILL' are set in ornate script and letterpress at the upper centre, above a promise-to-pay text and the denomination 'ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS' rendered in bold lettering within a dark guilloche band. The numeral '$100' appears at the lower left beside a manuscript agent's signature and account entry, with multiple diagonal 'CANCELLED' overprints applied across the face. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China POST BILL INCORPORATED BY ROYAL CHARTER Three days after Sight Promise to pay at the Banks Office here ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS Value received For the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China $100 Agent. |
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| Comments |
The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China received its royal charter in 1853 and opened its first branches in Calcutta, Bombay, and Shanghai the following year. By 1860 it was operating across a network of Asian ports where sterling-denominated instruments were genuinely useful for settling trade accounts — particularly in the China trade, where silver tael transactions and foreign banking coexisted uneasily.
Post Bills were a specific instrument: drawn payable a fixed number of days after sight, calculated to allow time for the mail to arrive before the bill fell due. They functioned closer to a time draft than a demand note, and their survival rate is accordingly low — they were meant to be presented, endorsed, and discharged, not preserved.
The S-prefix Pick reference places this firmly in the chartered/private bank issues rather than government currency — legally distinct, and unguaranteed beyond the bank's own solvency.