Catalog
5 Pounds
| Issuer | Government of Gibraltar |
|---|---|
| Year | 1927-1975 |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse lettering | ISSUED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF GIBRALTAR UNDER AUTHORITY OF THE CURRENCY NOTE ORDINANCE 1927. FIVE POUNDS CURRENCY NOTES ARE LEGAL TENDER IN GIBRALTAR FOR THE PAYMENT OF ANY AMOUNT. Colonial Treasurer. |
| Reverse description | The reverse is dominated by a large central medallion enclosing the Gibraltar Arms — a castle with three towers above a key on a shield — set within dense guilloche lacework, flanked on each side by an interlaced pound sterling cipher within further guilloche roundels. A rectangular panel at the foot bears the denomination legend in bold letterpress, and the imprint of Waterlow & Sons Ltd appears in small type at the lower margin. |
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| Comments |
Gibraltar's £5 notes of this long series span an extraordinary range of political history — from colonial interwar routine through the 1967 sovereignty referendum, in which 99.6% of Gibraltarians voted to remain under British rule rather than pass to Spain. The same basic design persisted through all of it, printed by Waterlow & Sons in London, a firm whose own history ended in scandal: in 1925, just before this series began, Waterlow had been defrauded by Artur Virgílio Alves Reis in the Portuguese banknote affair, one of the most audacious counterfeiting schemes of the twentieth century.
The series ran across multiple reign changes, requiring successive portrait updates as monarchs changed.