Collection PL

Australia 1880–1910 - Commercial Bank of Australia £100 Specimen (Pick Unlisted)

A monumental survivor from Australia’s private banking era, this £100 specimen ranks among the most important colonial-era notes known. Printed circa 1880–1910 for the Commercial Bank of Australia Limited, it represents the uppermost denomination produced under the private-issue system that existed before the Commonwealth took full control of note issuance in 1910. No issued examples of this £100 are believed to have survived, making specimens the only remaining documentation of the type.

New Zealand 1907–1926 - Bank of New Zealand £20 Blue Serial-Prefix Audit Specimen (Pick S194s)

Historically, £20 represented the highest practical denomination issued by New Zealand’s private banks prior to monetary centralization in 1934. Circulating examples were systematically redeemed and destroyed, leaving archival specimens as the sole survivors. Audit-range serial-prefix specimens such as this were printed in microscopic quantities and retained within Bradbury Wilkinson’s London archives, making their survival extraordinarily unlikely.

Sweden 1785 - Stockholm Spinnhus Pollett System – Complete Nine-Denomination Institutional Currency Set (One Half Öre to One Daler)

This complete nine-note ensemble represents the entire internal monetary system of Stockholm’s Spinnhus, the women’s correctional institution and workhouse operating on Långholmen Island during the late eighteenth century. Produced circa 1785, these engraved pollett notes functioned as closed-economy institutional currency, issued exclusively for use within the prison environment. They served as a controlled medium of exchange through which inmates were compensated for labor, particularly the spinning and processing of flax and wool. Internally, the notes operated as proto-fiat currency, enabling regulated transactions, discipline, and subsistence within a self-contained penal micro-economy.

Italy 1871–1872 - Banca Italo-Germanica 250 Lire Specimen (Pick S976s)

The note’s allegorical figure-Italia armed with shield and lance-embodies the nationalist mythmaking of the period, projecting unity, legitimacy, and sovereign stability at a time when the country’s financial systems were anything but stable. Its presence on a private banknote is historically significant: it illustrates how commercial institutions attempted to appropriate national symbols to bolster their credibility in a fragmented monetary ecosystem that lacked central authority. In this sense, the note functions both as a financial instrument and a cultural-political statement.