5 Pounds Clydesdale Bank

Clydesdale Bank was absorbed into the Midland Bank group in 1920, but retained its Scottish note-issuing rights — a commercial concession that English clearing banks never enjoyed. By the late 1940s the bank was operating under that dual identity: London-controlled capital, Edinburgh-registered issuer. The P#190 series falls squarely in that awkward postwar period when Scottish banks were quietly renegotiating their positions within the British clearing system.

Scottish £5 notes from this window are genuinely scarce in any grade. Wartime paper shortages had reduced note production across all Scottish issuers, and the 1948–49 series had a short run before revised designs followed in the early 1950s.