20 Dollars

The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China was one of the great British exchange banks of the nineteenth century, chartered by royal warrant in 1853 and operating across a network of Asian ports where sterling-denominated private banknotes functioned as genuine trade currency. A $20 note from 1875 would have circulated in Hong Kong, Singapore, or one of the treaty port branches — most likely denominated in Mexican dollars, the dominant silver trade unit across the region at that date.

Surviving examples from the 1870s issues of the Chartered Bank are exceptionally rare. Branch cancellation practices were aggressive, and notes returned to head office were routinely defaced or destroyed rather than archived.