20 Francs St. Thomas

Den Dansk-Vestindiske Nationalbank occupied an unusual position among colonial issuers: it functioned as a private chartered bank with note-issuing rights over a territory that Denmark had been trying, intermittently, to sell to the United States since the 1860s. Negotiations came close to conclusion in 1902, when a treaty of sale was actually signed — then rejected by the Danish upper house. Notes of this period were therefore issued against a background of genuine uncertainty about which nation would ultimately back the currency.

Bradbury Wilkinson produced the plates in London. The franc-denomination system used in the Danish West Indies was a local peculiarity — the islands ran parallel to, but not formally aligned with, French francs — and was eventually replaced by dollars when the U.S. finally completed the purchase in 1917 for $25 million.