5 Dollars

The Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China was one of the British exchange banks operating under Royal Charter in the eastern trade corridors, and its Hong Kong branch issued notes like this one to service the substantial volume of silver-based commerce moving between the colony, the treaty ports, and London. The bank was absorbed into the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in 1892, which makes this mid-1880s window the final years of independent issue.

Perkins, Bacon produced plates of exceptional intaglio quality — their anti-counterfeiting work was among the best available in the period, a deliberate choice for a note that circulated in markets where forgery of foreign bank paper was a persistent problem.