5 Dollars Barclay's Bank

Barclays Bank (Dominion, Colonial and Overseas) — the name itself maps the bank's ambitions — was a 1925 amalgamation of Colonial Bank, Anglo-Egyptian Bank, and the National Bank of South Africa, with Barclays absorbing the whole structure. The DCO designation gave it issuing rights across a remarkable spread of territories, and notes of this series were produced for multiple jurisdictions from a single Bradbury, Wilkinson operation in Surrey.

The S-prefix in the Pick reference indicates this is catalogued as a private or commercial bank issue rather than a central authority emission — a distinction that mattered less in the colonial banking world, where DCO branches often functioned as the de facto monetary institution in territories lacking a government note issue.