You can imagine my surprise when I came across an illustration of a Bank of England £5 note dated 1844 that carried two officially printed "stars" (asterisks)! I have reproduced below the relevant information which I extracted from page 94 of the very informative book "Promises to Pay: The First Three Hundred Years of Bank of England Notes" by Derrick Byatt published by Spink in London in 1994.
The word "composition" in the text below refers to the amount of financial compensation that was paid to those note-issuing private banks which were willing to cease issuing bank notes in their own name.
Needless to say, there's nothing new under the sun!
{http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2008-1/1293040/EARLY-STAR.jpg}
« Last Edit: January 31, 2010, 03:58:27 pm by Ottawa »
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" Buy the very best notes that you can afford and keep them for at least 10 years. " (Richard D. Lockwood, private communication, 1978).
