100 Pounds Bank of New Zealand

The Bank of New Zealand was a private trading bank, not a central bank, and these high-denomination notes circulated within a dual-currency environment where both British sterling and locally-issued paper coexisted under loose colonial supervision. A £100 note was a merchant and pastoral instrument — used for settling large wool and land transactions rather than anything resembling daily trade. The denominations above £50 rarely left the hands of station owners, wool brokers, or solicitors.

Bradbury Wilkinson produced the plates in London, which was routine for Australasian and Pacific issuers well into the twentieth century. The thirty-four year date span reflects continuity of the same basic plate, not a series of reissues.