5 Dollars

The Colonial Bank operated across the British West Indies and British Guiana from 1836 until its absorption into Barclays Bank (Dominion, Colonial and Overseas) in 1926. By 1918, the bank was already in managed decline — the merger had been anticipated for years, and note issues from this final period were produced in relatively small quantities against a shrinking need.

Perkins, Bacon handled the printing, as they did for much of the Colonial Bank's note history. The firm's steel intaglio work was standard for Caribbean colonial issuers of the period, and the same production relationship stretched back decades.

The two-year window of 1918–1919 coincides with severe wartime shipping disruptions affecting inter-island commerce throughout the region.