5 Dollars

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation was printing its own notes long before any colonial authority formally regulated the practice — HSBC's right of issue in Hong Kong derived from its founding ordinance of 1866, making it one of the few private banks in the region with a legally entrenched note-issuing privilege. By 1894, the bank's circulation spanned branches across Asia, and a single note might physically pass through Shanghai, Yokohama, or Singapore before redemption.

Metchim & Son were a relatively minor London printing house, not one of the dominant security printers of the period — their appearance here rather than Perkins Bacon or De La Rue is worth noting, though the reason for the contract is not documented in the public record.