What about the Perkins, Bacon & Co. bank-notes that also bear a Victoria vignette?

1.   The First Draft of History

When the history of the New Zealand Chalons first begins, there is no mention of bank-notes [Mottram1895] [Meville16].

For the New Zealand reader, the first hints of the bank-note engravings, which are actually the crucial first leg of the journey, come in [TPSoNZ38v1, p32-33]. “The selection of the design for the first adhesive stamps of New Zealand was arranged between the representatives of the New Zealand Government in London and Messrs Perkins, Beacon & Co. … Humphrys … was entrusted with the cutting of the portrait … As the first stage in the production of the plates, Humphrys engraved the central portrait only … An essay is known in which the portrait is more extensive than in the stamps, and the engine-turned background was also larger. It was surrounded by an ornamental circular frame without any inscription [i.e. the half-length engraving]. In another essay the portrait was reduced in extent … Ultimately the general lay-out of the design was agreed upon …”  

Two observations must be made:

1.       As we shall see this language (significantly contracted above but otherwise unadulterated) provides some misdirection, since the order of the quoted events as written is not the chronological order that we understand today. In the modern history, Humphrys engraved a three-quarter length portrait and thence constructed a half-length portrait long before the representatives of the New Zealand Government came calling. The reduced portrait was already in use on other projects and seems to have been slotted into the New Zealand commission.

2.       Recall that scaling a design, given the technologies of the day, was roughly equivalent to re-engraving the design from scratch; and certainly the three-quarter or half-length engraving was too large for a stamp so it seems unlikely to this author that either were a competing design element that sparked disagreements about the stamp’s general lay-out.

But indeed there was a delay, and [TPSoNZ38v1, p29] writes “From the existence of essays it appears that the non-fulfilment of the clause in the tender concerning the execution of the order within three months, was due to modifications of the original design.” There is a tantalising hint that a wider bust was considered, since [Odenweller2009, p231] publishes a Chalon proof hand-cut to a circle that encloses the just the bust and slightly more of the ermine cape. An alternative explanation for the delay may be culled from [PBR53, p.xvii] “A comparative study is helpful in revealing the pressure of work which fell on the firm [Perkins, Bacon & Co.] at certain periods, particularly against the backdrop of the contract for printing the stamps of Great Britain. At first sign the frequency with which promises had to be broken …” That is, the New Zealand stamps may have been delayed simply because Perkins, Bacon & Co. committed to more projects than it could fulfill in time, and New Zealand’s stamps were lower priority than other commissions.

At the Stamp Centenary Exhibition of May 1940, black and blue commemorative labels were published by the Royal Philatelic Society London. “The description which accompanied the publicity for these labels stated ‘The plate made for these labels has been prepared from the actual roller die used for the engraving of certain Australian bank drafts’” [Dickson2000, p8]. Yet the ornamental greenery in this engraving cannot be found in any Australian bank-note [VortRonald82].

 [TPSoNZ50vol2, p226] shows a half-length Chalon vignette in a jagged ornamental border and additional peripheral lines. The image is captioned “Original essay with portrait engraved by William Humphrys”. To this author, the vignette closely resembles the design first seen in the 4-digit-year series of Union Bank of Australia bank-notes, first issued circa 1878. However, this is 20 years after the non-jagged version was first released and over 10 years after Humphrys’ death. Perhaps Humphrys created it as a design proposal that was initially unsuccessful, then it gathered dust for some years before being resuscitated for the Union Bank of Australia. Or perhaps the image is miscaptioned.

[Lowe55, p345] makes two claims that do not accord with our modern knowledge:

1.       Lowe reports “During the fifties, Humphrys also engraved another copy of the portrait very similar to that which appears on the stamps of New Zealand, but in this case the three-quarters length … ” which this author interprets as “engraves from scratch”. Yet we now know that the three-quarter length portrait was on an issued bank-note earlier than the 1850s.

2.       Lowe continues “Another transfer of Humphrys engraving [i.e. the non-existent ‘fifties’ engraving] was used by Perkins, Bacon & Co. for producing the early bank notes of Western Australia.” But this reference to Western Australia must be astray since:

·         The Bank of Western Australia had merged into the Bank of Australasia very early, in 1841. Only one series of notes is known and it bears text but no graphic elements.

·         The Western Australia Bank, formed 1841, always used the swan as its motif on bank-notes, and Victoria was nowhere to be seen. Recall that Western Australia was first known as the Swan River Colony, due to the settlement at Perth (on the Swan River). For the first few decades, this fledging colony used a swan, not only for the Western Australia Bank bank-notes as described but also as its motif on its stamps too [WesternAust] [SGCBES2014, p39-41]

Meanwhile [Lowe55, p344], likely assisted by [Blanchard51] provides a helpful initial list of engravings of the Chalon portrait by various enterprises in North America.

[TPSoNZ64v4, p3] upgrades the “Western Australia” to the “Bank of Western Australia” and applies it to the [TPSoNZ50vol2, p226] vignette, but otherwise is closer to our modern understanding. [TPSoNZ64v4, p2-3] illustrates the vignette for a 20 shilling bank-note, but no bank nor date is ascribed, and the implication is that the answer is unknown to the editors and perhaps to all the philatelists of their acquaintance. [TPSoNZ64v4, p2-3] also illustrated an engraving of Victoria in a medallion, “stated to have been used for the Bank of British North America” [modern day Canada] yet their issued bank-notes always used the three-quarter portrait. [Pick2005, p142].

In short, the Perkins, Bacon & Co.-related bank-note details provided by [TPSoNZ38v1], RPSL, [Lowe55], and [TPSoNZ64v4] do not provide us with a robust historical foundation.

2.   Back on Track

[Stone69n915, p65] provides information that has yet to be falsified “In 1846 William Humphrys made a three-quarter-length engraving of the Queen … possibly for the North American banknotes on which it was later used … A further, half-length, version was used for Australasian banknotes …” But which North American and Australasian bank-notes?

It is not until 2000, decades after the first topic first arose, that more or less complete answers appear in the philatelic literature, in Dickson’s esteemed paper. Dickson writes “His [Stone’s] illustration … [of the 20 shilling banknote vignette] appears to have been taken from a Nova Scotia issue of 1848.” [Dickson2000, p7]

Just wow!

We have gone from a mystery design, apparently an essay for a failed commission that never saw the light of day, to an actual banknote!

Equally as remarkable, a Google search led to the uncovering of a recently scanned scrapbook, and a still-earlier Humphrys engraving for bank-notes.

Both these, and the items described below, are illustrated here.

It is worth noting that the numismatic community have done an outstanding job of cataloguing and publishing the history of bank-notes, and an important lesson here is to consult their work early and often when considering vignettes for bank-notes. For instance:

·        The Nova Scotia bank-note design precedes the Chalon bank-notes from the Bank of British North America, which used other vignettes until the latter bank’s first Chalon issue in 1852 [CoinsAndCanada].

·        This author cannot discern any other North American notes by Perkins, Bacon & Co. from [Pick2005], although there are many Chalon banknotes by other engraving enterprises.

·        [TPSoNZ64v4] introduces the Union Bank of Australia as an issuer of Chalon bank-notes. The excellent description in [VortRonald82, p223-230] reports that the first bank-notes included a (non-Chalon) vignette of Victoria seated in a throne, but the issued bank-notes from 1854 to 1905 all bore an engraving of the Chalon portrait, and all were printed by Perkins, Bacon & Co. until 1893. In New Zealand then the first Chalon bank-notes followed the first Chalon stamps, since the second series of bank-notes bearing the Chalon vignette “were first introduced [to New Zealand] at the Christchurch Branch on March 1, 1859” [TPSoNZ64v4, p3].

·        Australia also saw Chalon bank-notes from the Bank of Victoria, whose first bank-notes bear a three-quarter length Victoria vignette as described in [VortRonald82, p113-116]. This reference lacks dates, but [Renniks2004, p155] lists 1853. Meanwhile [Lowe94, p154] wrote “Quite recently, I have come across another past-up essay for a Bank Note, made by Perkins, Bacon and Company for Victoria.”  [Odenweller2009, p12 and p231] publishes two elegant specimens.