Collection PL

Australia 1900 - Bank of New South Wales £20 Sydney Circular Note Specimen (Pick Unlisted)

The reverse is fully printed as a blank demand draft and forms an essential part of the circular-note mechanism. It provides for payment "On demand" to the order of the named party and repeats the value as £20 Stg. and "TWENTY POUNDS Sterling value received." Blank fields were provided for the place and date of execution, again using the printed "19__" date format. Read more →

Mauritius 1839 - Mauritius Commercial Bank 20 Dollars / 4 Pounds Sterling Issued & Cancelled Note (Pick S125)

One of the earliest surviving issued notes of the Mauritius Commercial Bank-the oldest banking institution in the Indian Ocean-this 1839 Twenty Dollar / Four Pounds Sterling note is a foundational artifact of Mauritian monetary history. Issued only one year after the bank’s founding in 1838, it belongs to the first generation of fully functional colonial paper money used on the island. These early issues circulated at a time when coin shortages were severe, and private banknotes became the primary medium of exchange for merchants, plantation owners, and shipping houses. Read more →

Australia 1890 - Bank of New South Wales £10 Brisbane Circular Note Specimen (Pick Unlisted)

This £10 Sterling Circular Note specimen was prepared for The Bank of New South Wales at Brisbane as a portable banking instrument linking the bank's Australian branch network with its London office and correspondent bankers abroad. The printed form belongs to the 19th-century series identified by the open date field "18__" and preserves the complete unused structure through which a traveler could obtain funds while overseas. Read more →

Australia 1900 - Bank of New South Wales £10 London Circular Note Specimen (Pick Unlisted)

The reverse contains the companion blank demand draft used when the circular note was cashed. It is drawn on The Bank of New South Wales, Old Broad St., London, and repeats the value as £10 Stg. and "TEN POUNDS Sterling value received." Blank ruled spaces were left for the place and date of issue, again using the printed "19__" date format. Read more →

Australia 1890 - Bank of New South Wales £10 Melbourne Circular Note Specimen (Pick Unlisted)

Specimen status is recorded physically through a large perforated SPECIMEN cancellation passing through the lower right portion of the face. The perforation remains clearly visible from the reverse, preserving the specimen-control treatment as part of the paper itself. Read more →

New Zealand 1895–1915 - Bank of New Zealand £5 Orange Specimen (Pick S192s)

As a specimen combining dual control serials, perforated cancellation, retained audit margin, and original printer annotations, this example provides a comprehensive record of Bradbury Wilkinson’s production and verification methodology during the late colonial period. It stands not only as a high-denomination note but as a working document of the printing process itself, preserving layers of operational history rarely visible in surviving material. Read more →

New Zealand 1870–1890 - Bank of New Zealand £1 Green Specimen (Pick S191s)

Surviving specimens of the S191s type are extremely scarce. Most were removed during archival reductions or lost during the transition from private-bank to centralized currency issuance. As the earliest and foundational specimen of New Zealand’s engraved banknote history, this one pound green stands as the origin point of the BNZ color lineage and a cornerstone reference within the broader narrative of colonial-era currency development. Read more →

New Zealand 1905-1916 - Bank of New Zealand £1 Red with Serial Number Prefix G000001-G100000 Cancelled Perforation Specimen (Pick S212bs)

An archival £1 Red specimen from the Bank of New Zealand private-issue series, catalogued as Pick S212bs and drawn from the opening serial block G000001–G100000. This example was pulled directly from the working plates of Bradbury Wilkinson & Co., London, as an approval and control specimen for internal printer and bank-director reference during the closing phase of BNZ private note production. Read more →

New Zealand 1905-1916 - Bank of New Zealand £1 Red with Serial Number Prefix G100001-G300000 Cancelled Perforation Specimen (Pick S212bs)

Numbered specimen from the G100001–G300000 block of the BNZ £1 Red (Pick S212bs), printed by Bradbury Wilkinson & Co., London. Fully executed in final inks with live production numbering and perforated CANCELLED across the signature panel, identifying it as a printer-archive invalidation of a fully finished note rather than a proof or unfinished file copy. Read more →

New Zealand 1905–1916 - Bank of New Zealand £1 Red Cancelled Specimen with Serial Number Prefix E300001–E400000 (Pick S212bs)

As the final documented prefix block of the BNZ £1 Red series, this specimen represents the end of New Zealand’s private-banknote era and is properly classified as R8 Extremely Rare. Read more →

Mexico 1884 – Fábrica de Tunal 1 Peso (Pick Unlisted, ABNC)

Pick Unlisted (M717a) status reflects the Standard Catalog’s omission of non-bank corporate emissions. For researchers, this type is an anchor reference for studying the quasi-monetary ecosystems that formed around industrial enterprises in Durango during the Porfiriato. These ecosystems represent one of the least-documented yet most economically influential layers of Mexican monetary history-private institutions acting as de facto local banks in areas underserved by formal financial networks. Read more →

Mauritius 1842 - Mauritius Commercial Bank 10 Dollars / 2 Pounds Sterling Issued & Cancelled (Pick S122a)

Each note was printed on watermarked paper, completed by hand, and countersigned by bank officials. Surviving examples such as this are among the earliest tangible records of Mauritius’s entry into formal banking and British colonial monetary structure. Read more →