Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
400 Baht / 400 Ticals HSBC
| Issuer | The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation |
|---|---|
| Year | 1889 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Salmon-red intaglio printing over a pale green guilloche underprint, with the central vignette occupied by the royal arms of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, surmounted by the bilingual English and Thai bank title and the Bangkok office designation below. Serial number boxes are positioned at upper left and right flanking the vignette, the denomination 400 repeated in each corner, and the promise-to-pay legend in English distributed across two ornamental ribbon panels at centre, with the word BANGKOK set in a decorative cartouche at the foot. Chinese characters reading 香港上海滙豐銀行 run along the upper border, while Thai and Chinese denomination inscriptions occupy the side margins; the printer's imprint reads "Engraved on Steel by Barclay & Fry, London." |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Printed uniformly in salmon-red on plain paper, the reverse presents a central rectangular panel of Thai text setting out the full promise-to-pay obligation, enclosed within a simple ruled border. The Thai numeral ๔๐๐ appears in all four corners, and the bank's Thai title runs across the head of the note. The layout is entirely typographic, with no pictorial vignette or guilloche underprint. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation operated in Bangkok under a royal concession that permitted foreign banks to issue notes denominated in the local tical — an arrangement that would have been unthinkable within a decade, as Siamese financial nationalism gathered force in the 1890s. The 400-tical denomination is unusually high and suggests this note was designed for wholesale trade settlement rather than retail commerce, almost certainly tied to the rice export business that dominated Bangkok's international economy at the time.
Barclay & Fry printed for several colonial and foreign banking clients during this period, working primarily in intaglio. Only a handful of HSBC Bangkok issues from this era are known to survive.