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25 Dollars
| Issuer | Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation |
|---|---|
| Year | 1880 |
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| Currency | Hong Kong Dollar (1863-date) |
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| Obverse description | Horizontal format note with Chinese characters running along the upper border reading 香港上海滙理銀行. Two dark green guilloche ovals in the upper corners each bearing the denomination $25, flanked by ornate lathe-work borders. A central vignette at top presents the bank's coat of arms with a sailing ship. The issuer's name THE HONG KONG & SHANGHAI BANKING CORPORATION is printed in bold letterpress across the centre, above the written promise to pay TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS in large script. The text By Order of the Board of Directors appears above the signature line, with Acct. and Manager designations, and a CANCELLED overprint stamp is visible. Chinese denomination characters 二拾伍員 are arranged vertically along the right margin. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 香港上海滙理銀行 THE HONG KONG & SHANGHAI BANKING CORPORATION TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS $25 HONG KONG By Order of the Board of Directors Acct. Manager 二拾伍員 CANCELLED |
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| Comments |
The Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation was only sixteen years old when this note was issued, still consolidating its position against the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China as the dominant exchange bank in the treaty ports. A 25-dollar denomination is an unusual choice — neither a round hundred nor a working-class denomination — and almost certainly reflects the silver tael equivalencies used in Shanghai trade at the time, where such conversions produced awkward but commercially necessary figures.
Bradbury, Wilkinson had been engraving security documents since the 1850s and brought a high standard of intaglio work to colonial banking clients. Surviving examples from this early HSBC series are genuinely rare; most saw hard use in merchant transactions and few were ever formally retired through normal redemption channels.