1st June 2012

Jersey issues £100 notes

When Britain and beyond celebrated Queen Elizabeth II’s 60 years on the throne in 2012 – her Diamond Jubilee – Jersey decided to do something special. The States amended a 1959 law that limited the maximum denomination of any currency note it could issue so that it could print a £100 note for the occasion.

The note carried an image of the sovereign that had been commissioned by Jersey several years earlier to mark 800 years since the decision, in 1204, to align itself with the British crown. This portrait, called Equanimity, had been the centrepiece of an exhibition called The Queen: Art and Image. The exhibition, at London’s National Portrait Gallery, included works by Andy Warhol, Lucian Freud, Lord Litchfield and Cecil Beaton.

The text on the note was written in three languages – English, French and Jèrriais – and the notes themselves were legal tender in Jersey. They were sold at face value or, for an additional £5, in a commemorative wallet.