Bank of Ireland • from 1783

Banknotes issued by Joint Stock Banks prior to 1929
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Re: Bank of Ireland • from 1783

Post by DOC »

Interesting information on the issued £2 note !

The photo of the ledger above gives some nice context. I was a little puzzled that the photo is different to the one I found and it looks like there was an earlier tweet with single pages, including the previous Page 149. This also has some experimental designs.
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Re: Bank of Ireland • from 1783

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I have written to the Bank of England and maybe, just maybe, more info will emerge especially about the £2 note. The image above is quite intriguing! Why BOI when the ledger and presumably the artist were in the BOE?
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Re: Bank of Ireland • from 1783

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This Bank of Ireland £1 note from 1907 with the signature of Chief Cashier W.H. Baskin appeared recently at auction. Notes with the Baskin signature were issued between 1904 and 1919 with the branches listed in 4 lines from 1904-1907 and 5 lines from 1908-1919. The early type with branches listed in 4 lines is quite rare.
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Re: Bank of Ireland • from 1783

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That 1907 note is a nice find, I had only seen notes up to 1906 with four lines of branches - 1908 Bank of Ireland notes have five lines of branches
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Re: Bank of Ireland • from 1783

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The Bank of Ireland celebrates its 240th Anniversary this year. The Bank opened for business on 25th June 1783 at Mary’s Abbey. An interesting contemporary account describes the first banknotes and expresses disappointment that a £5 note was not issued. The lowest denomination was £10 along with several denominations up to £500. No surviving examples of this First Issue are known.
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Re: Bank of Ireland • from 1783

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The Bank wasn't into issuing small notes!
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Re: Bank of Ireland • from 1783

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I saw this recently on eBay - a previously unrecorded date for this series. The plate number is 11.

I have tried but failed to make any sense of the use of the different plate numbers - notes I have recorded with the prefixes H/75 and H/76 have a range of plate numbers, as follows:

H/75 ===55 plate 15
H/75 ===56 plate 13
H/75 13334 plate 7
H/75 81136 plate 17
H/75 94942 plate 17
H/76 94471 plate 11

Plate 1 has only been seen on I/47 =5240 while I/48 18357 uses plate 59, as does D/39 86103 (dated 15 Nov 1895).

Any theories out there??
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Re: Bank of Ireland • from 1783

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I suspect the Bank of Ireland used plate numbers to monitor print quality rather than as a security device. There appears to be no easily identifiable trend and this is probably due to the printing process employed by the Bank. It has been proposed that the plate numbers were printed as part of the basic design in the first stage, while the red overprint including the date and branches were added later. This may explain why notes with consecutive serial numbers are known with different plate codes.

The plate numbers may provide some additional insights into the note issues of the Bank. For example, certain plate ranges appear to have been used by the Bank for different denominations. The £1 notes that I have seen all appear to have plate numbers in the range 1-60. One date, 26th March 1917 covers almost the entire plate code range: I/74 55683 has plate number 2, while I/74 66632 has plate code 60. One short time period in 1899 covers the entire £1 plate code range: £1 13th June 1899 D96 45868 has plate code 60, while 16th October 1899, E11 =8122 has plate code 1.

It would be interesting to compile a database of print codes to see what trends if any emerge.
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Re: Bank of Ireland • from 1783

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DOC wrote: 08 Jul 2023 22:49 It has been proposed that the plate numbers were printed as part of the basic design in the first stage, while the red overprint including the date and branches were added later.
Having examined some of the plates, I can confirm that this is correct.
Also, these large size notes were printed two up side-to-side on a plate. Odd plate numbers marked left side notes, with even numbers marking right side note.
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Re: Bank of Ireland • from 1783

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Mac, thanks for those additional insights.

Here is a summary of the plate numbers that I have observed for Bank of Ireland multi-branch notes from 1864-1918. It is interesting to see that certain plate number ranges were used for the different denominations. I would be interested to hear if anyone has examples of plate numbers which would extend the observed ranges.
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Re: Bank of Ireland • from 1783

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As the notes are two up on a plate, and each plate has an odd number and an even number, I would propose that the table be perhaps modified to:
£3 - 61-68
£20 - 91-96
£50 - 97-100
£100 - 101-104
£500 note plate has numbers 105, 106 from observation.
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Re: Bank of Ireland • from 1783

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Mac, that makes sense and the Table is updated accordingly.
It makes me wonder if there is room there for a £1,000 note :)
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Re: Bank of Ireland • from 1783

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I've never seen any evidence that the Bank of Ireland, or indeed any other Irish bank, ever produced a £1000 note. That doesn't mean they didn't issue one of course!
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Re: Bank of Ireland • from 1783

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Yes, there is no firm evidence to date to support a Bank of Ireland £1,000 pound note.

It is unlikely, that any Irish private bank issued fixed denomination notes above £100 but these banks issued notes for higher values in the open denomination format with the denomination added by hand. There is a reference to a £1,000 note of this type issued by Latouche & Sons, in the will of Edward Cusack.
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Re: Bank of Ireland • from 1783

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St. Mary’s Abbey was recently in the news due to the discovery of ancient skeletal remains dating back to the 11th century.

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2023/07 ... l-remains/

The building at 2-3 St. Mary’s Abbey, the location of the first branch of Bank of Ireland, is now a protected structure and the protection proposal from 2017 mentions the following:

The front part of what is now the ground floor shop unit building was the site of the first branch of the Bank of Ireland. There is a safe/strong box in the wall covered by a wall panel, on the right hand side behind a wall panel in the shop unit.
• 1783 – 25 June 1783, the Bank of Ireland opened for business at Mary's Abbey (Off Capel St., Dublin) in a private house previously owned by one Charles Blakeney.[3] (taken from the Wiki entry for the history of the Bank of Ireland).
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Re: Bank of Ireland • from 1783

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Interesting indeed, what turns up in old bank branches!
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Re: Bank of Ireland • from 1783

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Here is an interesting halfpenny token issued by J.Hilles in Dublin in 1813 with a promise to pay in Bank of Ireland notes. James Hilles was a wholesale iron ware merchant and tin plate manufacturer. The bearer would have had to present 480 of these tokens to receive a Bank of Ireland £1 note !
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Re: Bank of Ireland • from 1783

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This North of Scotland Banking Company £1 from 1836 is up for auction at Lockdales at the end of November with an estimate of £12,000-£15,000. I was struck by the similarity of the female figure on the right side of this note with the Hibernia figure on Bank of Ireland notes introduced in 1838. The figures are not identical but I wonder if the Bank of Ireland design was inspired by the Scottish £1 note?
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Re: Bank of Ireland • from 1783

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This classical female appears on a lot of 19th century banknotes. W H Lizars engraved the North of Scotland note and as far as I know engraved very few Irish notes. The Agricultural & Commercial Bank and the Fermoy Bank of John Anderson spring to mind. Also a proof bill of exchange for the Southern Bank of Ireland (intended?) Edinburgh office.
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Re: Bank of Ireland • from 1783

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The similarity between the two female figures is quite striking!
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