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£100 Pound Banknote |
| Issued | Signatories | Serial Numbers |
| 1914 - 1923 | Collins/Allen | Small Blue numbers
Z000001 to at least Z 047964 |
| 1914 - 1923 | Collins/Allen | Medium Black numbers
Z 091301 to Z 105260. |
| 1924 - 1945 | Cerutty/Collins | Suffix of Z - Bold numbers
114841 Z to 315550 Z |
| 1924 - 1945 | Cerutty/Collins | Prefix of Z - Medium numbers
Z 315551 to Z 553000 |
Approximately 553,000 one hundred pound notes were released between 1914 and 1945.
The first signature combination
There are only two specimens of this note known to exist.
One in the Art Gallery of South Australia, and the other in the Mitchell Library in Sydney NSW.
Only one example of the second variety of this signature combination is known to exist in private hands.
This note was offered at a Spink auction in March 1987 and sold for $42,000.
The only other notes of this variety known are in Bank and Museum collections.
The second signature combination
Only a dozen or so of these notes have been offered on the market since 1975.
The third [unissued] signature combination
An unissued £100 note was prepared in 1939, designed to supplement earlier issues of this denomination.
The number of notes that were produced is not known, but it was found that they were not required, and all supplies
except for a few specimens were destroyed. This brown note, with a central oval portrait of George VI, has a blank circle
for watermark of Captain Cook at left, and on the right a circle with wreath enclosing the Australian coat of arms.
The back of the note shows a central panel depicting Dairying, which shows a man milking a cow, a woman carrying eggs in a basket,
and a man with a yoke carrying a bucket. A calf, fowls and geese are in the foreground. It is stated that during 1958 all supplies
of this note were destroyed except for a few specimens now held by the Reserve Bank of Australia.
The signatures are those of Harold John Sheehan, Governor Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Stuart Gordon McFarlane, Secretary
to the Treasury. Serial numbers are Z over a 0 prefix, and a six-digit serial number.
All high denomination banknotes were recalled after the Second World War. This was
gazetted in May 1945 as a national Security Regulation and it stated that after
August 31 1945 denominations of £20 and above would cease to be legal tender.
While this regulation never became law it had the effect of uncovering
nearly £5,700,000 in hoarded currency. At the end of 1945 the following notes
remained un-presented :
- £20 - 506
- £50 - 2,830
- £100 - 2,146
- £1,000 - 317
These notes only appear very rarely, so any valuations are largely hypothetical.
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