20 Pounds Bank of New South Wales

The Bank of New South Wales was among the oldest surviving private banks in the Australian colonies, but its right to issue its own banknotes was on borrowed time by the period of this note. The Commonwealth Bank Act of 1911 had already established the federal institution that would eventually absorb trading bank note issue entirely, and private bank currency was progressively squeezed out of circulation through the 1910s and beyond.

Charles Skipper & East handled the printing — the same London firm responsible for banknote work across multiple British colonial issuers during this period. The £20 denomination was rarely held by ordinary depositors; at that value it was primarily a commercial and interbank instrument, which means genuine circulation wear on surviving examples is less common than with lower denominations.