£20
Twenty Pound Banknote
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| Issued | Signatories | Serial Numbers |
| 1914 – 1917 | Collins/Allen – r64 | X 000001 to X 040703 |
| 1918 – 1924 | Cerutty/Collins – r65a | Prefix of X – Small numbers X 040744 to X 167283 |
| 1918 – 1945 | Cerutty/Collins – r65b | Suffix of X – Bold numbers 167284 X to 421500 X |
Lot 606 at the Auction Galleries Auction 74 held on 2nd June, 2011 was a r65b note – graded EF – which realised a price of $267,950
The Right Note sold a r65b note -graded GF – for $100,000 in early 2018
Approximately 421,500 twenty pound notes were printed.
The design on the back of all Commonwealth of Australia twenty pound notes features timber cutting on Bruny Island in Tasmania.
The first signature combination
1913 George V Twenty Pound Type A Specimen Note
Sold in 2012 – $695,000
The second signature combination
The second signature combination was Charles John Cerutty and James Richard Collins.
The third signature combination
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£20 – 506
£50 – 2,830
£100 – 2,146
£1,000 – 317
The Australian Government gazetted in May 1945 a National Security Regulation which stated that after 31 August 1945, denominations of £20 and upwards would cease to be legal tender. This regulation never became operative. Before the date on which it was to take affect, the regulation was overridden by the amending Commonwealth Bank Act under which all Australian notes were legal tender. The regulation was not re-enacted. Between May 1945 and the passing of the Commonwealth Bank Act (1945), the Treasury’s purposes had been substantially achieved.
At the end of June 1950, only 380 £20 notes were recorded as still being in circulation. After then, notes were “written off the books if not redeemed within 40 years of issue. Thus the official “Monthly Statistics” thereafter showed a continual decline in the numbers outstanding so that now there are, in theory, none outstanding. There could actually be up to 380, but this total would be greatly reduced by lost or destroyed notes.
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