Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
5 Pounds Commercial Bank of Scotland
| Issuer | Commercial Bank of Scotland |
|---|---|
| Year | 1947-1958 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Portrait vignette of John Pitcairn at top centre, flanked by allegorical female figures on either side; a female head vignette appears at lower left. The face carries the full promise-to-pay text and is laid out in a traditional Scottish commercial bank style with letterpress inscriptions. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | The Commercial Bank of Scotland Ltd. Promise to pay the bearer on demand Five Pounds Sterling At the office here Edinburgh By order of the Court of Directors |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
The Commercial Bank of Scotland's postwar £5 series was produced by Bradbury Wilkinson at their New Malden works, a firm that dominated Scottish commercial bank printing through much of the twentieth century. The dates 1947–1958 bracket a period of particular tension for Scottish private note issuers: the 1945 Banking Act debates and subsequent discussions through the early 1950s repeatedly threatened to curtail the ancient right of Scottish banks to issue their own currency, a right they ultimately retained.
The Commercial Bank itself ceased to exist as an independent entity in 1959, absorbed into the National Commercial Bank of Scotland — which makes the terminal date of this series essentially the last gasp of the issuer.