UNIFORM BANK NOTES.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 2776, 18 October 1923, Page 9

UNIFORM BANK NOTES.

TELLER'S LITTLE JOKE,

The decision of the associated banks to Sue notes of uniform «e and colouring has been ; much satisfaction by bank officials It was the Bank Officers Guild that fns moved in the matter some three >.ais ago, and its representations base at last borne fruit. A teller explained to an Auckland newspaper man that one of the chief grounds \for complaint was the -ssue by the Commercial Bank of a i /- note of the same size as the £ note. This gave rise to constant anxiety. Another “ offender ” was the Bank oi Australasia, which had no colour scheme to make notes of different denominations easily distinguishable The Bank of New Zealand had a colour scheme, but there was a too elaborate colour scheme on each note, and the consequence was that a badly worn note lost its distinctive features. Another point which had emphasised the need for uniformity was that no bank had the same set of colours for the different denominations. A pile of notes of a miscellaneous character was something more arresting than Joseph’s coat. It was an artist’s night mare, but was rather more disturbing for a teller. This official said he was too much of a counting machine to have any opinion about the range of colours selected for the future. His only concern was to have them definite and uniform for each denomination. “1 won't start dreaming about the golden glory of gors e when I am counting rolls of the yellow ten bob notes,” he said. “I’ll wait until I get into my garden before I consider the possibilities of yellow. But you will notice that they hav e put a long distance between the yellow and the green. The £2O notes are to be green, and the £IOO notes oliv e green. I hope the Orangemen won’t lose any sleep because the nearest thing to their colour, is to adorn the smallest ‘ promise to pay,’ and that there will be no objection from the Irishmen of the other colour because the green notes will be rare —very rare in these days. “ As a matter of fact, I have never seen a £IOO note outside a bank, for the ordinary mortal it is one of those things that are too good to be true, and anyway it is too unsafe to carry about one hundred in one piece, 1 would rather have one hundred sovereigns in a money belt if I had to carry the money in negotiable form. A money belt full of gold could be a useful weapon.

“ Yellow, violet, blue, brown, green pink, olive green. It’s a nice assortment. It sounds like running up the scale if you can talk about colours having sound. The tone is thinner as you ascend. But, really, 1 am not concerned about the colours. When I'm counting I don’t see the colours. They mean numbers just as notes in a sheet of music mean sounds, but figures, which reminds mo—good day ! ”