NEW BANK OF ENGLAND MUSEUM EXHIBIT

The Bank of England is 325 years old. To mark the milestone, a new exhibition pulls together 325 fascinating objects from the financial institution's past. Bank of England Museum curator, Jenni Adam, singles out a handful of these objects for Londonist.

Proof for Jacobite banknotes (1745)

This is a design for Jacobite banknotes, made in 1745 by engraver Robert Strange. He was commissioned by Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) to produce printing plates for banknotes that would be used to pay Jacobite expenses during the rebellion. But the printing plate — and banknotes — were never used. It was abandoned after the Battle of Culloden, and only rediscovered in the 1920s.

Hand scales for weighing and testing coins (1749)

This is a set of hand scales for weighing gold and silver coins from other countries, which could be accepted because of their value as bullion. The weights are labelled with the name of the coins they represent, which helps a user make sure an unfamiliar coin is genuine (forgeries would usually be lightweight, because they wouldn't contain as much gold as a genuine coin).

£40 banknote in the name of Elizabeth Head (1702)

This is one of the oldest banknotes we have in the collections, from 1702. At this point the notes were only part-printed and most of the important details (value, date, number etc) were written in by hand. We picked this one because it's the earliest note that names a woman as a payee, Elizabeth Head. It's for £40 which in 1702 was a huge amount of money, around £9,200 — this certainly wasn't an everyday method of payment for most people.

To read the complete article, see:
Eye Up A One Hundred Million Pound Banknote At This Museum (https://londonist.com/london/museums-and-galleries/bank-of-england-objects-325-years)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web