Catalog
20 Pounds Anglo-Egyptian Banking Company Limited
| Issuer | Anglo-Egyptian Banking Company Limited |
|---|---|
| Year | 1886 |
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| Printer | Bradbury Wilkinson and Company, United Kingdom (1856-1990) |
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|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is printed entirely in blue and composed of an elaborate all-over guilloche pattern of interlocking floral and geometric lathe-work, with a scalloped outer border. At the centre, an octagonal panel encloses the numeral "20" in bold script, beneath which the printer's imprint reads "BRADBURY WILKINSON & Co LONDON". Below the central design, a perfin cancellation spells out "SPECIMEN / B.W.&CO / LONDON", identifying this as a printer's specimen example. |
| Reverse lettering | 20 BRADBURY WILKINSON & Co LONDON SPECIMEN B.W.&CO LONDON |
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| Comments |
The Anglo-Egyptian Banking Company was incorporated in London in 1864 to service trade finance between Britain and Egypt, operating at a moment when Egyptian public debt was spiraling toward the 1876 default that would eventually bring British occupation. This note was issued a decade after that crisis, during the period of British administrative control that followed Arabi Pasha's defeat at Tel el-Kebir in 1882. The bank operated branches in Alexandria and Cairo but remained a British-chartered institution throughout.
Bradbury Wilkinson produced high-security commercial bank notes for numerous colonial and trade-oriented institutions during this period, and their work for the Anglo-Egyptian series is consistent with that output. The £20 denomination would have been a wholesale instrument — not a note passing through ordinary retail commerce in the bazaars of Cairo.