Graubündner Kantonalbank was one of Switzerland's smaller cantonal institutions, serving a largely rural, trilingual canton with no major commercial center to speak of. That it commissioned Bradbury Wilkinson — already the preferred printer for colonial currency, railway bonds, and British postal orders — speaks to the prestige expectations of even modest Swiss cantonal banks in the 1890s. London-engraved plates gave these notes a crispness and visual authority that domestic Swiss printers of the period could not reliably match.
The fifteen-year span of this issue is notable. Cantonal bank notes circulated alongside federal currency in Switzerland until the Swiss National Bank's monopoly was finally consolidated after 1907, which effectively killed off most of these regional issues. This note type did not survive that transition.
Graubündner Kantonalbank was one of Switzerland's smaller cantonal institutions, serving a largely rural, trilingual canton with no major commercial center to speak of. That it commissioned Bradbury Wilkinson — already the preferred printer for colonial currency, railway bonds, and British postal orders — speaks to the prestige expectations of even modest Swiss cantonal banks in the 1890s. London-engraved plates gave these notes a crispness and visual authority that domestic Swiss printers of the period could not reliably match.
The fifteen-year span of this issue is notable. Cantonal bank notes circulated alongside federal currency in Switzerland until the Swiss National Bank's monopoly was finally consolidated after 1907, which effectively killed off most of these regional issues. This note type did not survive that transition.