Cornish bank notes issued by a notorious businessman known as the "Smugglers' Banker" are to go on display in Polperro after being sold at auction in London.
The rare £1 and £5 notes were bought by the village museum, which already has a number of displays relating to the area's smuggling traditions.
Polperro Heritage Museum director Tony White said: "We are very, very pleased to have secured the notes for the museum. It's good news for Polperro and good news for Cornwall that a bit of Cornish history has come home."
The lower denomination note, which went under the hammer at Spinks' sale room in Russell Square, is signed by Zephaniah Job and dated 1818.
Job, who was born in St Agnes and moved to Polperro in the 1770s, was an astute and wealthy entrepreneur. He helped his adopted community in a number of ways, including building its first school, but behind the veil of respectability lay a scheming free-trader. It was for this reason he earned the nickname of the "Smugglers' Banker".
The acquisitions, which will go on show when the museum reopens next Easter, were part of a collection of some 4,000 provincial bank notes from across the UK.
"We have no idea how many Polperro bank notes survive," said Mr White.
"We know of another £5 note in the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro but we have not seen or heard of any more."
Mr White would not disclose the exact purchase price, but said it was within the auctioneers' guide of "several hundred pounds".
"We feel very lucky to have them," he said. "These two are in excellent condition despite being nearly 200 years old and they're back where they belong – in Polperro."
Free-trading – a Cornish term for smuggling – was at its height during the late 18th and early 19th centuries and Zephaniah Job was one of several men who put the activity on to a sound financial footing. By organising cargoes with Guernsey crews, Job provided a good living for Polperro fishermen.
In 1806 he obtained a licence to issue Polperro bank notes in £1, £2 and £5 denominations, which were printed in London and payable by a firm of merchant bankers.
Job died in 1822 and it was said that local people remembered him fondly as Polperro's "great benefactor".
