The South African Reserve Bank's highest-denomination pound note, P#101 was issued in the final years before South Africa decimalized in 1961. At 100 Pounds — equivalent to 200 Rand at conversion — these saw almost no retail circulation. They moved between banks and large commercial accounts, and surviving examples with any handling at all are relatively uncommon precisely because so few people outside clearing houses ever touched one.
Bradbury Wilkinson produced the series from their New Malden works, a firm that handled high-security currency printing for dozens of Commonwealth and colonial issuers through the mid-twentieth century. The bilingual Afrikaans-English designation on this series reflects the political consolidation of Afrikaner cultural identity in the years following the National Party's 1948 election victory.
The South African Reserve Bank's highest-denomination pound note, P#101 was issued in the final years before South Africa decimalized in 1961. At 100 Pounds — equivalent to 200 Rand at conversion — these saw almost no retail circulation. They moved between banks and large commercial accounts, and surviving examples with any handling at all are relatively uncommon precisely because so few people outside clearing houses ever touched one.
Bradbury Wilkinson produced the series from their New Malden works, a firm that handled high-security currency printing for dozens of Commonwealth and colonial issuers through the mid-twentieth century. The bilingual Afrikaans-English designation on this series reflects the political consolidation of Afrikaner cultural identity in the years following the National Party's 1948 election victory.