Five Pounds, 179–, uniface Proof on heavy paper, Promise to pay Mr Abm. Newland; together with a written tribute [2]. Worn edges with a few splits, adhesive stains [from the note and written tribute being stuck together], very good, rare £300-400

Produced by Alexander Tilloch, a London printer; sold with a lengthy tribute as ‘to be highly deserving of the notice of the Bank of England & private bankers as an art of great merit and ingenuity, calculated not merely to Detect but to Prevent the possibility of forging Bank and other circulating Bills’. Recorded as the first proposal brought to the Committee in May 1797