500 Dollars HSBC

Bradbury Wilkinson produced this note at their New Malden works during a period when Hong Kong's three-bank issuing arrangement was under periodic scrutiny — the colony's government had considered centralizing note issuance more than once, and never quite followed through. HSBC's $500 remained the highest practical denomination in everyday commercial use through this period, the $1,000 note existing but rarely seen outside banking circles.

Watermark-only security reflects the era's assumptions about forgery risk in Hong Kong — magnetic ink and metallic threads came later, with the 1980s redesign series that retired P#189 from circulation by 1983.