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5 Pounds - George VI Brown
| Issuer | Bermuda Government |
|---|---|
| Year | 1941 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 5 Pounds |
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| Obverse description | Printed in brown with black serial numbers, the obverse carries a front-facing portrait of King George VI at right within a guilloche border, with a vignette of a vessel in Hamilton Harbour, Bermuda at lower left. Denomination and legal tender inscription appear across the note, with signatures of the Assistant Colonial Treasurer and Colonial Treasurer below the central text panel. The date '1st AUGUST, 1941' is printed as part of the issuing authority text. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Printed in brown on a yellow underprint, the reverse is dominated by the British Royal Coat of Arms at centre, flanked on either side by circular guilloche rosettes each bearing the denomination 'FIVE POUNDS' in bold lettering. The motto ribbons beneath the coat of arms carry the inscriptions 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' and 'Dieu et mon droit', with the value '£5' printed below in numerals. |
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| Comments |
Bermuda's wartime currency situation was genuinely complicated. The 1941 issues were produced under emergency conditions, with sterling-linked Bermudian notes serving a colony that had become strategically vital to Allied operations — Bermuda was the base for British censorship of transatlantic mail and a key staging point for the destroyers-for-bases agreement of 1940. A five-pound note in that environment was serious money, more likely to sit in a government cashbox than pass through civilian hands.
Bradbury Wilkinson's New Malden facility handled security printing throughout the war despite the obvious risks of production in wartime Britain. Pick 12 is among the scarcer Bermuda issues of the period, with relatively few examples known outside institutional holdings.