British Administration 1950's Queen Elizabeth II portrait issues (2) both in VF comprising Bermuda Government 5 Shillings Pick 18b dated 1st May 1957 serial number Q/1 414049 along with Malaya & British Borneo Board of Commissioners of Currency 1 DollarPick 1a dated 21st March 1953 serial number A/90 769221. Both Scarcer and always sought-after collectible examples. The Bermuda 5 Shillings is an example from the last issue before Bermuda changed its system to dollars partly due to the increased tendency to keep their reserves in US dollars, nevertheless Bermuda remained a member of the sterling area
Bermuda Government British Administration 1 Pound dated 2nd December 1914, serial number in red 008547, P1, PMG 25 VERY FINE. An extremely rare piece, black on green underprint with arms at left on obverse. This is the first ever 1 Pound note issued in Bermuda and the only one to be printed by the American Banknote Company, Ottawa as the following later denominations were printed by British printers, mostly Waterlow & Sons and Bradbury & Wilkinson & Co. In 1882, the local 'legal tender act' demonetized the gold doubloon, which had in effect been the real standard in Bermuda, and this left pounds, shillings, and pence as the sole legal tender. The British pound sterling then remained the official currency of Bermuda until 1970. In 1920, 5 shilling notes were introduced, followed by 10 shillings in 1927 and 5 pounds in 1941. The 5 shilling note ceased production in 1957, with 10 pound notes introduced in 1964. It was finally decided to take the action that British Honduras had already done 85 years earlier. In line with the international trend towards decimalization, Bermuda introduced a new currency in the form of a dollar that was fixed at an equal value to the US dollar. The new Bermuda dollars operated in conjunction with decimal fractional coinage, hence ending the pounds, shillings, and pence system in that colony in the year before it was ended in the United Kingdom itself. The decision to finally align with the US dollar was at least in part influenced by the devaluation of sterling in 1967 and Bermuda's increasing tendency to keep its reserves in US dollars. Although Bermuda changed to a U.S. based currency and changed the bulk of its reserves from sterling to U.S. dollars in 1970, it still nevertheless remained a member of the sterling area since at that time, the pound sterling and the US dollar had a fixed exchange rate of £1 = $2.40. The design makes it a bit of an outlier as it does not feature any royal portraits.
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