100 Pounds Town and County Bank

The Town and County Bank Limited was a Scottish provincial bank headquartered in Aberdeen, and this £100 note sits at the very top of its circulating denomination range — a figure that represented substantial commercial credit rather than everyday exchange. Perkins, Bacon & Co. brought their characteristic steel-engraved security work to the plate, the same firm responsible for some of the earliest postage stamp printing and numerous colonial note issues of the period.

The Town and County Bank was absorbed into the Royal Bank of Scotland in 1907, making 1894 a relatively late date in the issuer's independent history. High-denomination provincial Scottish notes of this period rarely circulated far — they functioned largely as instruments between merchants and factors — and surviving examples are correspondingly thin on the ground.