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20 Pounds Sterling
| Issuer | National Bank of Scotland |
|---|---|
| Year | 1862 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Black and white intaglio-printed note with the header THE NATIONAL BANK OF SCOTLAND in bold letterpress across the top and bottom margins. The central vignette presents a heraldic composition with figures, a lion, and a shield flanked by two large guilloche rosettes each bearing the numeral 20, with a third oval guilloche at lower left. Below the vignette, the place of issue EDINBURGH appears in a rectangular panel, followed by the printed promise-to-pay text in script reading The National Bank of Scotland promise to pay on demand to Mungo Penton or Bearer TWENTY POUNDS Sterling, By order of the Board of Directors, with manuscript date 13th August 1862 at foot. The word SPECIMEN is overprinted in bold across the lower right of the note. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | THE NATIONAL BANK OF SCOTLAND Incorporated by Royal Charter UNDER ACT 16 & 17 VICT. CAP. 63 EDINBURGH The National Bank of Scotland Promise to pay on demand to Mungo Penton or Bearer TWENTY POUNDS Sterling By order of the Board of Directors. Account Manager SPECIMEN |
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The National Bank of Scotland was established in 1825 and operated as one of Scotland's major joint-stock banks until its merger with the Commercial Bank of Scotland in 1959 to form the National Commercial Bank. Scottish banks retained — and still retain — the legal right to issue their own notes, a privilege dating to arrangements predating the Bank Charter Act of 1844, which applied to England and Wales but left the Scottish system largely intact.
A £20 denomination in 1862 was a substantial sum, roughly equivalent to a skilled tradesman's monthly wage several times over. Notes at this level moved between merchants and institutions, not through everyday retail trade, and surviving examples from this period are uncommon precisely because heavy commercial use left few in acceptable condition.
Cotton-based paper of this period was produced domestically, with Scottish banks sourcing from specialist papermakers — Cowan's Mill at Penicuik supplied several Edinburgh issuers through much of the nineteenth century.