Collection PL

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.

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

The Chinese text was not an incidental decorative feature added to a later issue. It formed part of the Commercial Bank of Australia’s note design from the bank’s establishment in 1866. The winning note design announced in June 1866 specifically incorporated the bank’s name and the denomination in Chinese characters into the border. This was a deliberate commercial distinction aimed at Chinese customers at a time when Chinese merchants, miners, laborers, trading houses, and investors formed an important part of the Victorian economy. Contemporary reporting explicitly connected the Chinese inscriptions with the bank’s desire to attract Chinese depositors, making the notes an early and unusually direct example of financial-product localization and customer acquisition embedded in the currency itself.

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

The obverse presents a fully realized Edwardian composition: an engraved Māori portrait vignette rendered with anthropological precision, a coastal scene symbolizing New Zealand’s export-driven economy, and a central blue-grey guilloche medallion exclusive to the bank’s highest denomination. The reverse features an ornate frame enclosing the word POUNDS, surrounded by micro-engraved denomination clusters and anti-photographic detailing. Watermark impressions visible in transmitted light correspond to the special paper stock used only for BNZ’s top-tier issues.

Australia 1835-1850 - Bank of Australasia £10 Melbourne Proof (Pick Unlisted)

The Melbourne imprint anchors the note to the colonial financial center of Victoria during a period of rapid economic development. Notes of this denomination were used for large commercial settlements and institutional transactions, making the Ten Pounds value the highest tier of everyday banking paper in the colonial economy.