Watermark-help please

[Guest Steve]

My first post! U lot look very knowledgable so I wonder if you could help me with the following, my father used to work for an australian bank based in the city of london and when he retired they gave him a rather weird present, he had always admired it from afar!

It is approx 3foot by 2ft in a wooden box with an oval frontage-switch on the top and when you turn it on there appears in the window a large watermark of the queen, he tells me that this is from around 1952 and was made by Waterlows?

Any info of it's worth would be appreciated along with your thoughts.

[mint_mark]

I found some history about Waterlows... link found in google

I thought I remembered the name from my stamp collecting days. I'm sure that as well as printing stamps they would have made the dandy rolls (I think that's the name) that put the watermark design into the paper.

I imagine your father's giant watermark was made to commemorate the accession of the queen. I wonder whether it was presented to the bank originally or whether they acquired it another way. It certainly doesn't sound like an every day coronation souvenir.

Sorry, no idea about value... maybe you could ask the " Waterlow Study Circle"?