15/06/2026
📜 What are these random banknotes doing in the museum?
These purple-and-white New Zealand one pound notes might look ordinary at first glance — but they tell a fascinating story of war, exploration, and one man’s lifelong passion for collecting Captain Cook memorabilia.
Issued in New Zealand during the closing years of the Second World War, the notes feature a portrait of Captain James Cook on the front, while the reverse shows Cook’s ship under full sail at sea. The notes were signed by T. P. Hanna, Chief Cashier of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand between 1940 and 1955.
But there’s an extra clue hidden in the serial number. The “0/Q” prefix helps date these notes to the very end of the war period, just before a major changeover in 1946. These wartime notes circulated at a time when paper shortages, rationing, and uncertainty affected everyday life across the world.
Our notes belonged to Reg — a passionate collector of anything connected to Captain Cook. Over the years he built up an extraordinary collection including paintings, prints, books, stamps, postcards, coins, and banknotes from across the globe. He subscribed to collectors’ catalogues and magazines for decades, carefully saving articles and adverts connected to his interests. Long before online collecting became common, Reg was already searching auctions and corresponding with dealers around the world — and later became an early eBay user too.
While Wayne was working through photographing objects in the museum, he just randomly uncovered the original catalogue article Reg saved when he bought one of these notes. It reminds us that museum collections are not just about the objects themselves, but also about the people who treasured them.
Sometimes the story behind the object is just as important as the object itself!
