The Important Collection of Irish Paper Money formed by Bob Blake (Part II)

Co Galway, Tuam, Ffrenchs Bank, One Pound, uncertain day and month, 1809, no. 1620, for Rt. Hon. Lord Ffrench, Henry Edmund Taaffe, Michael Morris, William Keary & Hon. Charles Ffrench. A few stamps and endorsements, pinholes, worn edges with a few short tears, otherwise very good, a scarce early issue €400-500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Bob Blake Collection of Irish Banknotes.

View
Collection

Ffrenchs Bank was founded in Tuam in 1804 and opened further branches in Dublin and Galway. The bank’s extensive issues of paper money were said to have ‘constituted the whole circulation of the province of Connaught.’ On 9 December 1814 the principal partner, Lord Ffrench, committed suicide and the shock to public credit, on the discovery of the bank’s insolvent position, which had been kept from public knowledge, was such that business came to a standstill