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20 Pounds Bank of New South Wales
| Issuer | Bank of New South Wales |
|---|---|
| Year | 1890-1934 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Printed entirely in orange-red on cream paper, the reverse is dominated by a large conjoined triple-oval guilloche cartouche at centre bearing the word 'TWENTY' in bold serif capitals against a fine lathe-work underprint. Four oval rural vignettes, one at each corner, each illustrate an agricultural scene with horse-drawn carts, haystacks and trees, evoking the pastoral economy of the colony. The composition is enclosed within a plain rectangular border rule. |
| Reverse lettering | TWENTY |
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| Comments |
The Bank of New South Wales was Australia's oldest trading bank, founded in 1817, and its privately issued notes circulated alongside those of rival banks well into the twentieth century. Charles Skipper & East, the London security printer responsible for this issue, produced notes for British colonial and dominion banks across several decades — the commission reflecting both the bank's preference for metropolitan prestige and the limited intaglio security-printing capacity available in Australia at the time.
Private banknote issue in New South Wales effectively ended when the Commonwealth Bank gained traction after 1910, but existing stocks and authorized issues from institutions like the Bank of New South Wales continued under grandfathered arrangements into the 1930s. The forty-four year span of this series is unusually long for a high-denomination private note.