Contemporary forgeries: Provincial Bank of Ireland Thirty Shillings 1832

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Mac
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Contemporary forgeries: Provincial Bank of Ireland Thirty Shillings 1832

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This is probably the most well-known early forgery, with several notes recorded so far:

Provincial Bank of Ireland Thirty Shillings 1832, No. 24542. (A so-called radar note) Watch out for these.
One of these has actually been graded as a genuine note and encased in a plastic holder—I'll post the scan of that when I come across it again.

More early forgeries to come.
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Provincial Bank of Ireland 30 Shillings forgery.
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Provincial Bank 30 shillings forgery

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Here's the graded note.

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Provincial Bank of Ireland Thirty Shillings forgery Number 24542.

Apparently the graders didn't notice that the note is a contemporary forgery.
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Re: Contemporary forgeries

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Here is a third example of this forged note.

Provincial Bank of Ireland 30 shillings 1832 contemporary forgery. No. 24542
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And a fourth!
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I have seen another one also, which I will post when I can find it again.
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Re: Contemporary forgeries

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Here is that other PBI forgery of No. 24542.

This forged Provincial Bank 30 Shilling note made it all the way to Scotland, and was the subject of contemporary court proceedings at Edinburgh Balie Court.

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Edinburgh forged Provincial Bank Thirty Shillings Dec 1 1832.
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Re: Contemporary forgeries: Provincial Bank of Ireland Thirty Shillings 1832

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I added a web page based on an article I wrote for Coin News on Contemporary Forgeries of Early Irish Banknotes which expands on these notes.
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Re: Contemporary forgeries: Provincial Bank of Ireland Thirty Shillings 1832

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Mac, this is a fascinating account of early contemporary banknote forgeries.

The penalties for forging banknotes at this time could be severe ranging from a stay in prison, transportation to the colonies or in the most extreme cases, a sentence of death by hanging. Here is an interesting notice referring to the execution of the infamous forger, Arthur O’Leary. He was executed outside the Dublin Debtors’ Prison in 1809 for the forging of Bank of Ireland notes.
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Arthur O'Leary Forger Dublin Evening Post 5th August 1809.JPG
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Re: Contemporary forgeries: Provincial Bank of Ireland Thirty Shillings 1832

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This makes me wonder if forgers of Bank of Ireland notes received more severs sentences than forgers of notes of the private banks!
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Re: Contemporary forgeries: Provincial Bank of Ireland Thirty Shillings 1832

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Mac wrote: 19 Dec 2021 00:57 This makes me wonder if forgers of Bank of Ireland notes received more severs sentences than forgers of notes of the private banks!
I think that this could well be true as the impact of forging notes of the ‘National Bank’ as it was then known would be of greater economic significance.

Here is an interesting example of the forging of a private bank note of Thomas Lighton & Co., Dublin. The forgery appears to be of good quality when compared to a genuine note. The signatures are also a reasonable likeness of the originals. The forgers may have made a mistake though in advancing the serial numbers too quickly from 1644 (in 1805) to G3574 (in 1806). The dimensions of the forged note also appear to be slightly smaller.
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Thomas Lighton & Co. Dublin 1 Guinea 18th April 1806 Forgery.jpg
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Thomas Lighton & Co. Dublin 1 Guinea 20th Aug. 1805.jpg
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Re: Contemporary forgeries: Provincial Bank of Ireland Thirty Shillings 1832

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A-G is a lot of notes in 15 months.
Unfortunately, there are not very many notes from Lighton, Needham and Shaw to compare this against.
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Re: Contemporary forgeries: Provincial Bank of Ireland Thirty Shillings 1832

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Here is an interesting example of a Provincial Bank of Ireland £5 forgery, Athlone Branch, 1st June 1839. The forgery involves alteration of the denomination panels of a genuine £1 note to make it look like a £5 note. The attempt to disguise ‘ONE POUND’ in the promissory text is not entirely successful. A genuine £5 note from the Armagh Branch is included for comparison.
Provincial-Bank-of-Ireland-5-Pounds-Forgery-1st-June-1839-Athlone.jpg
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Provincial-Bank-5-Pounds-15th-March-1836-Armagh.jpg
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Re: Contemporary forgeries: Provincial Bank of Ireland Thirty Shillings 1832

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The options for altering the 'ONE POUND' in the promissory text would be somewhat limited, I think. Still, the forgery is quite a good job.
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Re: Contemporary forgeries: Provincial Bank of Ireland Thirty Shillings 1832

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Those Provincial Bank 30s note forgeries were also reported in contemporary accounts. Here is a report tracing them to a patron of a public house in Carrick-on-Shannon !
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Re: Contemporary forgeries: Provincial Bank of Ireland Thirty Shillings 1832

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Interesting. This correlates nicely with the report of the court case in the Edinburgh Balie Court where another one of the forgeries of the Provincial 30s note was the subject of a case.

And we know that there were at least 22 notes produced!
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Re: Contemporary forgeries: Provincial Bank of Ireland Thirty Shillings 1832

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Here is an interesting Provincial Bank of Ireland 25 Shillings note, bearing an 1827 date, which appeared recently on ebay. The poor quality print suggests that this note is a contemporary forgery and an example with the same serial number is listed as such on the Irishpapemoney website.
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Provincial-Bank-of-Ireland-1-pound-1828-forgery.jpg
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Provincial Bank of Ireland 25 Shillings 1827 Belfast Branch.jpg
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Re: Contemporary forgeries: Provincial Bank of Ireland Thirty Shillings 1832

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I think the contemporary forgeries don't wear as well as issued note.
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