Description and research notes
The finest preserved £5 specimen of New Zealand’s wartime private-banknote era and the highest-graded example recorded for Pick S227s. Printed in London by Bradbury, Wilkinson & Co. during the 1916–1920 wartime production cycle, this specimen represents an internal audit and approval piece retained from a numbered print run rather than a zero-serial display copy. Certified PMG 65 EPQ Gem Uncirculated, it is the sole PMG-certified example at this grade and the undisputed Top Pop.
Within the BNZ color lineage, the £5 denomination occupies the warm-tone tier established by the pre-war £5 Orange issues of 1895–1915. Wartime pigment constraints and paper rationing produced a distinct tonal shift toward a red-rose or salmon hue, while preserving the same functional position within the denomination hierarchy. This note therefore represents a wartime evolution of the £5 Orange lineage, not a separate color class.
The obverse displays Bradbury Wilkinson’s mature colonial engraving style: a Māori chieftain and youth vignette rendered with anthropological precision, a coastal landscape symbolizing New Zealand’s maritime economy, and dense guilloche structures printed in saturated wartime tint. The reverse, executed in blue-green interlace, reflects the technical peak of BWC engraving during the First World War.
This specimen carries dual live serial prefixes (7/180001–7/220000), confirming its role as an internal audit-range piece. The perforated CANCELLED across the signature panel prevents accidental circulation, while the pencil annotation dated 29 September 1917 corresponds to Bradbury Wilkinson’s press-balance records. PMG records this feature as Printer’s Annotation.
The 1916–1920 BNZ series marks the final phase of New Zealand’s private-bank note-issuing autonomy before the establishment of the Reserve Bank in 1934. Internal audit specimens from this period were almost always destroyed. Evidence supports a microscopic surviving population of perhaps one to three examples in any form.
As the best-preserved BNZ £5 specimen of the wartime era and the only certified serial-prefix example, this note stands as a reference-grade artifact of New Zealand monetary history and is properly classified as an R8 rarity.