5 Dollars

The Chartered Bank of India, Australia & China was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1853 and began Hong Kong operations shortly thereafter, competing directly with the Oriental Bank and later the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation for dominance in the China trade. By the 1870s it was one of only a handful of institutions with genuine authority to issue private banknotes across multiple territories simultaneously — the same plate design could theoretically circulate in Bombay, Shanghai, or Singapore.

W.H. Sprague & Co. handled printing for several colonial and private bank issues during this period, a smaller operation than Perkins Bacon or De La Rue but technically competent. The 1875 date places this note in the middle of a volatile decade for silver-denominated trade currencies, when the global price of silver was beginning its long structural decline — directly affecting the purchasing power of dollar-denominated instruments throughout the treaty port network.

The Chartered Bank eventually merged with the Standard Bank of South Africa in 1969 to form Standard Chartered.