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Rare Newbury banknotes set to fetch thousands at auction





Emblazoned with ‘Newbury Old Bank’ or ‘Newbury Bank’, the notes are to go under the hammer at Bloomsbury, London, next month, after being put up for sale by Jersey-based property tycoon David Kirch.
Despite having no monetary value, one note, an unissued £50, has an estimate of between £1,000 and £1,500.
Mr Kirch’s collection of English provincial banknotes, worth about £1million, will be sold in four parts at Spink.
During the 19th century Newbury had four privately owned banks, Newbury Bank, Newbury New Bank, the Berkshire Union Banking Company, and Newbury Old Bank, which was founded in 1782, but went bust in 1816.
The latter produced comparatively few notes and not many survived, however two of their ten pound notes will be auctioned and are expected to go for about £500.


Newbury Bank was the most successful of all the banks and was in business for more than a century until 1895, when it was taken over by the Capital and Counties Bank Ltd, which eventually became Lloyds TSB.
A spokesman for Spink, Barnaby Faull, said: “All towns and cities used to issue their own banknotes. Merchants would get together and set up their own banks.
But their notes – which were like IOUs - could only be used locally, so when many of these provincial banks went bust – such as Newbury Old Bank - their notes became completely worthless.”



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