20 Pounds Commercial Bank of Scotland

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.