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20 Pounds British Linen Bank
| Issuer | British Linen Bank |
|---|---|
| Year | 1916-1933 |
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| Currency | Pound sterling (1707-1970) |
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| Obverse description | The note is dominated by a blue and orange guilloche underprint with three large ornate oval vignettes along the left margin, each enclosing a seated allegorical figure. The royal arms surmount a central cartouche bearing the denomination numeral '20', flanked by two additional oval panels. Below, the bank title and promise-to-pay text are rendered in bold letterpress script, with the place and date of issue 'Edinburgh' printed above the manuscript signatures of the Accountant and General Manager. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse carries the bank's circular seal as the principal design element, set against a fine guilloche background typical of early twentieth-century Scottish commercial banknote production. |
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| Comments |
The British Linen Bank — despite its name — had nothing meaningful to do with linen by this point, the textile connection having dissolved centuries earlier into straightforward banking. It remained a Scottish chartered institution operating under that anachronistic name until its absorption into the Bank of Scotland in 1969. This note's seventeen-year date range reflects Waterlow & Sons' practice of printing undated or partially completed sheets for Scottish issuers, with dates applied at time of issue rather than press.
Twenty-pound Scottish provincials from this period are genuinely scarce in any state — the denomination saw limited public handling, and surviving examples tend to come from old bank stocks rather than circulation.