5 Pounds Colonial Bank of New Zealand

The Colonial Bank of New Zealand was a Dunedin-based institution that operated from 1874 until its absorption into the Bank of New Zealand in 1895, following a crisis of confidence that swept through the colony's financial sector during the prolonged depression of the 1880s and early 1890s. Perkins, Bacon handled the security printing for a number of Australasian private banks during this period — their intaglio work was considered reliable enough that colonial institutions rarely looked elsewhere.

The S263 designation covers a fairly wide issuance window, and individual notes within the series can vary in manuscript date, branch, and signatory. Attribution to specific branch offices is the detail that separates routine examples from the more collectible ones.