Gibraltar Banknotes 5 Pound note 1971
Issued by the Government of Gibraltar under Authority of the Currency Note Ordinance 1934
Obverse: Rock of Gibraltar at bottom center. Currency Notes are Legal Tender in Gibraltar for the Payment of Any Amount
Reverse: Coat of arms of Gibraltar at center.
Watermark: Key.
Printer: Thomas De La Rue & Company Limited, London England.
Gibraltar banknotes - Gibraltar paper money
1927-1975
10 Shillings 1 Pound 5 Pounds
Rock of Gibraltar
The Rock of Gibraltar (sometimes called by its original Latin name, Calpe) is a monolithic limestone promontory located in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar, off the southwestern tip of Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. It is 426 m (1,398 ft) high. The Rock is Crown property of the United Kingdom, and borders Spain. Most of the Rock's upper area is covered by a nature reserve, which is home to around 300 Barbary macaques. These macaques, as well as a labyrinthine network of tunnels, attract a large number of tourists each year.
The Rock of Gibraltar was one of the Pillars of Hercules and was known to the Romans as Mons Calpe, the other pillar being Mons Abyla or Jebel Musa on the African side of the Strait. In ancient times the two points marked the limit to the known world, a myth originally fostered by the Greeks and the Phoenicians.
Gibraltar is not the southernmost point of Europe, which is the Punta de Tarifa, at 25 kilometres Southwest of Gibraltar, as the crow flies. Gibraltar is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea and has no contact with the Atlantic Ocean.
Coat of arms of Gibraltar
The coat of arms of Gibraltar was first granted by a Royal Warrant passed in Toledo on July 10, 1502, by Isabella I of Castile during Gibraltar's Spanish period. The arms consists of an escutcheon and features a three-towered red castle under which hangs a golden key.
The arms were described in the Royal Warrant as consisting of:
"...an escutcheon on which two thirds of its upper part shall have a white field; in the said field set a red Castle; underneath the said Castle, on the other third of the escutcheon, which must be a red field in which there must be a white line between the Castle and the said red field; on this a golden key which shall be on that with a chain from the said castle..."
The arms consist of a shield parted per fess:
1st Division: Two thirds Argent, a triple-towered castle of Gules, masoned and ajouré of Sable.
2nd Division: One third Gules, a key of Or hanging by a chain also of Or from the castle.
The castle has its roots in the heraldry of the Kingdom of Castile, the largest and most important medieval Spanish kingdom, of which Isabella was Queen. The preamble to the warrant granting the coat of arms to Gibraltar said:
"...and we, deeming it right, and acknowledging that the said City is very strong and by its situation it is the key between these our kingdoms in the Eastern and Western Seas and the sentinel and defence of the Strait of the said Seas through which no ships of peoples of either of these Seas can pass to the other without sighting it or calling at it."
The idea of Gibraltar being the key to Spain or the Mediterranean originated well before the Spanish conquest. The followers of Tariq ibn-Ziyad, who invaded Spain via Gibraltar in 711, are said to have adopted the symbol of the key when they settled in Granada. The coat of arms was accompanied by the inscription "Seal of the noble city of Gibraltar, the Key of Spain".
Today, the official coat of arms as used by the government of Gibraltar consists of the original coat of arms with the addition of the motto, Montis Insignia Calpe "Insignia of the Mountain of Calpe", (Mons Calpe was the Latin name of the Rock of Gibraltar), which was granted by the College of Arms in 1836 to commemorate the 1779-1783 Great Siege of Gibraltar. It is the oldest coat of arms in use in an overseas territory of the United Kingdom and is unique in that it is the only armorial insignia that dates from before the period of British colonial administration.