Today we're used to seeing the Queen staring benignly from crumpled £10 notes marked "Bank of England".

But as recently as the early 1900s there were hundreds of different Welsh financial houses issuing their own money to anyone rich enough to use it.

This week, London auctioneer Spink, established in 1666, sold about 300 Welsh notes for about £65,000.

Andrew Pattison, a bank note expert at the auction house, said: "Between about 1780 and 1910 many towns in England and Wales would have issued their own notes.

"Traders and merchants and industrialists would get together and form banks and issue their own notes and this is what these are.

"Some of these banks were only around for one or two years until they went bankrupt.

"Others lasted until they were taken over by bigger banks like Barclays.

"The Welsh section of the collection is particularly interesting because Wales was so important in terms of industry and mining."

The collection has been 30 years in the making and was put together by Jersey multimillionaire, David Kirch.

"It was almost complete in terms of what he could get," said Mr Pattison.

It covered the "whole of England and Wales" and notes in the lot come from nearly every county in Wales.

"There were even individual notes on Anglesey. There is one from the Holyhead and Anglesey bank," said Mr Pattison.

"That was a £2 note. There was a lot of those because the difference between £1 and £5 was so vast. So there were £7 and £8 notes as well.

"These were not really used by your average person. Very often it was such a huge amount of money, even £1."

Notes were used by traders and businessman because it was safer and easier than carrying a lot of coins.

"Often if they wanted to send them, they would cut them in half and send the two parts separately," he said.

"Each side had a serial number and when you got them both you knew you had the right one.

"We have got some that have been cut in half and stuck back together."

To read the complete article, see:Welsh bank notes issued in 19th century sell at auction for £65,000(www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/welsh-bank-notes-issued-19th-2824015)