Catalog
200 Pounds White, 1778 issue
| Issuer | Bank of England |
|---|---|
| Year | 1778-1807 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | A vignette of Britannia seated appears at the upper left, serving as the principal device of the note. The body of the note is filled with a handwritten and printed promise of payment issued by the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, with the sum of Two Hundred Pounds stated in both words and figures. The note is unprinted on the reverse, conforming to the classic "white note" format characteristic of early Bank of England issues. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is blank, consistent with the traditional unprinted "white note" format used by the Bank of England during this period. The £200 denomination was first introduced between 1725 and 1745, with earlier examples being slightly smaller in format. Notes of this denomination were issued exclusively by the head office in London and were not produced by any of the Bank of England's Country Branches. |
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| Comments |
Bank of England "white notes" of this period were handwritten instruments, not printed ones in any modern sense — the body text was engraved and press-transferred, but the payee name, date, cashier's signature, and serial number were all added by hand at the point of issue. A cashier's clerk filled in each note individually, which means no two examples from this run are identical in the way a printed note would be.
The £200 denomination placed this firmly in the world of merchant banking and large commercial settlements. Retail trade never saw notes of this size. The 1797 suspension of cash payments — when the Bank stopped redeeming notes in specie due to wartime financial pressure — affected the entire white note series, and circulation patterns shifted accordingly during the long Restriction Period that followed.
Forgery of these notes was a capital offence, and executions for uttering forged Bank of England paper continued into the 1820s.