UNIFORM BANK NOTES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17169, 12 October 1923, Page 8

UNIFORM BANK NOTES.

TELLER’S LITTLE JOKE. The decision of the associated banks to issue notes of uniform size and colouring has been received with much satisfaction by bank officials. It was the .Bank Officers’ Guild that first moved in the matter some three years ago, and its representations have at last borne fruit. A teller explained to an Auckland newspaper man that one of the chief grounds for complaint was the issue bv the Commercial Bank of a ten shilling note of the same size as the pound note. This gave rise to constant anxiety. Another *-offender” was th& Bank of Australasia, which had no colour scheme to make notes of different denominations easily distinguishable. The Rank of New Zealand had a colour scheme, hut 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 hail emphasised the need for unformity 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 nightmare, but was rather more disturbing for a teller.

This official said be was too much of p 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. “ l won’t start dreaming about the golden glory of gorse when 1 am counting rolls qf the yel’oiv ten bob notes,” he said. “ I’ll wait until T get into my garden before I consider the possibilities of yellow. But you will notice that they have put a long distance between the yellow and the green. The £2O notes are to be green, and the £IOO notes olive green. 1 hope the Orangemen won’t lose any sleep because the nearest thing to their colour is to adorn th© smallest ‘ promise to pay,’ and that there will be no objection from Irishmen of the other colour because the green notes will be rare—very rare in these days.

“As a matter of fact, 1 have never seen? a £IOO note outside a bank. For the ordinary mortal it is one of those things that arc too good to he true, and anyway it is too unsafe to carry about one hundred in one piece. I would rather have one. hundred sovereigns in a money l>£lt if T 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 th© scale if you can talk about colours having'sound. The tone is get thinner a s you ascend. But, really, I am not concerned about the colours. IV hen T’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 me—good day 1”