British and French Bank (Became Banque Nationale de Paris) - England 1947

Beautiful RARE certificate from the British and French Bank printed in 1947. This historic document was printed by Bradbury & Wilkinson & Company and has an ornate border around it with the company's name on top center.

In 1947, Banque Nationale de Crédit (BNCI) transformed its London branch into a separate subsidiary called the British and French Bank, with shares held by Banque Nationale de Crédit and two British investment firms, S.G. Warburg and Company and Robert Benson and Company. The British and French Bank continued to grow in international territory and assets, and BNCI itself grew much faster than the other three nationalized banks.

In the mid-1960s, along with an imposition of strict lending ceilings to shrink the money supply, the government began to talk about rationalizing banks and insurance companies in an effort to better concentrate the financial sector. In 1966, this led to the merger of CNEP and BNCI and the formation of Banque Nationale de Paris. Henry Bizot was president of the new bank. Since CNEP had retained its strength in Paris and BNCI its strength overseas (it had the widest foreign territory of any French bank), the two banks complemented each other neatly. As a result of the merger, the British and French Bank subsidiary took in the operations of CNEP's London branch.

History from Wikipedia and OldCompanyResearch.com.

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About Specimen Certificates

Specimen Certificates are actual certificates that have never been issued. They were usually kept by the printers in their permanent archives as their only example of a particular certificate. Sometimes you will see a hand stamp on the certificate that says "Do not remove from file".

Specimens were also used to show prospective clients different types of certificate designs that were available. Specimen certificates are usually much scarcer than issued certificates. In fact, many times they are the only way to get a certificate for a particular company because the issued certificates were redeemed and destroyed. In a few instances, Specimen certificates were made for a company but were never used because a different design was chosen by the company.

These certificates are normally stamped "Specimen" or they have small holes spelling the word specimen. Most of the time they don't have a serial number, or they have a serial number of 00000. This is an exciting sector of the hobby that has grown in popularity over the past several years.