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20 Pounds Colonial Bank of New Zealand
| Issuer | Colonial Bank of New Zealand |
|---|---|
| Year | 1880-1899 |
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| Value | 20 Pounds |
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| Obverse description | Central vignette at upper centre presents a heraldic shield bearing the bank monogram, flanked by two allegorical female figures, with a sailing vessel rendered in the background. The note carries the bank's full title and promise-to-pay legend in letterpress inscription across the face, with the place of payment designated as Dunedin. Ornate guilloche work frames the composition throughout. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | INCORPORATED BY ACT OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1874 THE COLONIAL BANK OF NEW ZEALAND PROMISE TO PAY THE BEARER ON DEMAND THE SUM OF TWENTY POUNDS STERLING AT THEIR OFFICE HERE DUNEDIN FOR THE COLONIAL BANK OF NEW ZEALAND |
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| Comments |
The Colonial Bank of New Zealand was a commercial bank chartered in 1873 and operated largely out of Dunedin, serving the South Island's pastoral and mining economy. It collapsed in 1895 — one of several New Zealand private banks undone by the long agricultural depression of the 1880s and 1890s — and its business was absorbed by the Bank of New Zealand. Notes dated after 1895 were never formally issued, and any surviving examples from the late series almost certainly never circulated.
Bradbury Wilkinson produced the plates; their work for colonial issuers during this period was consistent and technically accomplished, though the £20 denomination in any private New Zealand series is inherently rare given the sum's limited practical use outside wholesale trade settlement.