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20 Pounds Commercial Bank of Scotland
| Issuer | Commercial Bank of Scotland |
|---|---|
| Year | 1947-1958 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Printer | Bradbury Wilkinson and Company, United Kingdom (1856-1990) |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | The Commercial Bank of Scotland Ltd. Promise to pay the bearer on demand Twenty Pounds Sterling At the office here Edinburgh By order of the Court of Directors |
| Reverse description | The central vignette presents the neoclassical facade of the Commercial Bank of Scotland's head office building, surrounded by period street scenes with figures in early 19th-century dress arranged across the full width of the note. A large guilloché-style script rendering of "Twenty Pounds" is superimposed over the sky area above the building, with the bank's full title and charter inscription in letterpress at the top. |
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| Comments |
The Commercial Bank of Scotland's £20 notes from this period were not retail instruments — a sum of twenty pounds in the late 1940s represented roughly two weeks' wages for an average Scottish worker, and notes of this denomination circulated almost exclusively between businesses and banks. That functional reality means genuine wear on surviving examples is unusual; most saw brief handling before being lodged in accounts or destroyed through the clearing system.
Bradbury Wilkinson's intaglio work for Scottish commercial banks during this window was among their most technically accomplished output. The firm held contracts with multiple Scottish issuers simultaneously, which occasionally raises provenance questions — though the S334 series is cleanly documented.