Catalog
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| Issuer | Commercial Bank of Australia Limited |
|---|---|
| Year | 1917-1919 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | NEW ZEALAND THE COMMERCIAL BANK OF AUSTRALIA LIMITED PROMISE TO PAY THE BEARER ON DEMAND THE SUM OF FIVE POUNDS HERE VALUE RECEIVED WELLINGTON THE COMMERCIAL BANK OF AUSTRALIA LIMITED FIVE FIVE POUNDS FIVE NEW ZEALAND |
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| Reverse lettering | THE COMMERCIAL BANK OF AUSTRALIA LIMITED FIVE POUNDS |
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| Comments |
The Commercial Bank of Australia Limited was one of the few Australian private trading banks still issuing its own notes into the World War I period — a practice that would effectively end with the 1910 Australian Notes Act, though existing private notes remained legal tender until 1914 and continued circulating informally for some years after. By 1917, this series was already an anachronism. The Commonwealth Bank had long assumed the dominant note-issuing role, and private bank paper was being steadily withdrawn from active use.
Waterlow & Sons produced this note at their London operation, as they did for a significant portion of Australasian colonial and private bank issues. The CBA was absorbed into the National Bank of Australasia in 1981, but its note-issuing history had ended six decades earlier.