Paper and Proofs from the Portals Archives

Portals

Portals Paper was set up by a French paper maker, Henri (later Henry) Portal in the early 1700’s. Due to it’s ability to create sizeable quantities of superb quality paper in a location relatively close to the Banknote England printing works, Portals was chosen to produce watermarked security paper for their banknotes. The first order was received in 1924, and Portals supplied almost every piece of paper for all Bank of England notes over the following three centuries. At the height of the British Empire, Portals was producing paper all three of the major British banknote printers, Bradbury Wilkinson, Waterlow & Sons and De La Rue, who together provided banknotes for a huge percentage of the planet.

When the Government of India decided to print it’s own banknotes in the late 1850’s, Portals was chosen to provide the paper. There were many similarities between the proposed designs and the existing Bank of England notes, and the new notes featuring a portrait of Queen Victoria, were printed and released in the early 1860’s. You can see some extremely rare early examples of the paper used for these notes in this auction. Over the following decade, counterfeiting became a serious concern in India, and Portals worked closely with the Bank of England printers to increase the security of a new issue, to be released in the early 1870’s. This auction includes several proofs, specimens, and paper samples for this first of ‘black and green’ India issues.

This type of paper design was in continual use for more than 50 years before being gradually replaced by notes featuring the portrait of King George V. This auction contains a complete set of George V watermarks, as well as several that were never used, and various other important items. Portals continued making Indian watermarked paper throughout the reign of George VI and into the era of independence, and examples of many of these can also be found over the following pages.

It is important to state that this is first and only time that most of these items will ever be offered for auction. This is all the material of this kind that remained in the Portals archives, and no more will ever come from this source. We hope you all enjoy the remarkable offering of this unique material, and wish you all the best of luck with your bids.