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10 Shillings
| Issuer | Commonwealth Bank of Australia |
|---|---|
| Year | 1934 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Portrait of King George V in uniform occupies the right portion of the note within a fine-line engraved frame, with the Commonwealth Arms at centre-bottom flanked by two signature lines for the Governor of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the Secretary to the Treasury. The large numeral '10/-' appears in red at centre against an intricate guilloche underprint, with an oval void at left intended for watermark display. The heading 'COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA' runs across the top in bold letterpress. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A finely engraved central vignette illustrates an allegorical scene labelled 'MANUFACTURES', in which several figures are engaged in industrial and artisanal labour around a large wheel, rendered in intaglio with strong sculptural relief. The vignette is set within an ornate rectangular cartouche flanked by guilloche ovals bearing the fractional denomination '1/2', repeated in each corner. The overall colour is olive-brown on an unadorned background. |
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| Comments |
The Riddle-Sheehan signature combination on this note reflects a transitional moment at the top of the Commonwealth Bank — James Riddle served as Governor from 1927 to 1938, while Harry Sheehan held the position of Secretary. Australia's note-printing operation had been brought in-house to Melbourne after World War I, a deliberate move away from reliance on British printers, and by the mid-1930s the Note Printing Branch had developed considerable technical competence.
Pick 20 is the last of the pre-decimal ten-shilling type before wartime exigencies prompted design and security revisions. The cotton substrate on surviving examples is prone to heavy soiling along fold lines — this series circulated hard during the Depression years, and genuinely clean examples are rarer than catalog frequency suggests.