Burning Banknotes

Royal Bank of Scotland

1991

About £1million in £5 notes  -  about to be burnt  -  1991

 Edinburgh at Work  -  Royal Bank of Scotland  -  Oldbanknotes about to be burnt

©  Copyright: Peter Stubbs                                                                                                                        Photograph taken 3 July 1991

 

Enlarge this photo

   Edinburgh at Work  -  Royal Bank of Scotland  -  Oldbanknotes about to be burnt ©

 

Burning Banknotes

Royal Bank of Scotland

For many years, the Royal Bank of Scotland has removed old bank notes from circulation and burnt them in a furnace, latterly in a top floor room at St Andrew Square, once a week.

This practice stopped in the early 1990s as the smoke from the burning did not comply with Edinburgh's clean air legislation.  On the occasion that the photograph above was taken, £1 million of old notes was being burnt.

I was invited back to the bank some months later to witness the 'Final Burning'.  A number of invited guests were present for the occasion. They were given 'Final Burning' tee-shirts, each bearing a large picture of burning notes made from the photograph above.

Here is what the bank notes above looked like, about half an hour later:

Edinburgh at Work  -  Burning old banknotes ©

 

 

Royal Bank of Scotland

Edinburgh at Work

   

 

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