20 Pounds National Bank of New Zealand Limited

The National Bank of New Zealand Limited was a privately chartered bank incorporated in London in 1872, which is why its notes were printed in Britain throughout its early decades rather than in the colony itself. Perkins, Bacon & Petch — the firm behind some of the most technically sophisticated intaglio work of the Victorian and Edwardian periods — handled the production, bringing the same security printing expertise they applied to postage stamps across the Empire.

A twenty-pound denomination in New Zealand private banking was not a retail instrument. At a time when a working man's weekly wage rarely exceeded two pounds, this note moved between merchants, station owners, and banks. Surviving examples in any condition are genuinely rare; high-denomination private issues of this period circulated in narrow channels and were seldom kept.