20 Dollars

Barclays DCO occupied an unusual position in colonial banking — it was a commercial bank operating as a quasi-official currency issuer across multiple British territories simultaneously, with branch networks often substituting for central banking infrastructure that simply didn't exist. This note was printed at Bradbury, Wilkinson's New Malden works, one of the most technically accomplished security printers of the period, responsible for issues across dozens of territories during the interwar years.

The DCO series of 1937 predates the wave of post-war currency boards that would eventually strip commercial banks of their note-issuing rights throughout the British Caribbean and East Africa. By the mid-1950s, Barclays DCO had been pushed out of currency issuance almost everywhere it had operated.