Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1 Franc
| Issuer | Régence de Tunis |
|---|---|
| Year | 1921 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | RÉGENCE DE TUNIS UN FRANC فرنك واحد SÉRIE Décret du 25 Janvier 1921 15 Djoumadi-el-Aoual 1339 الامر العلي المؤرخ في 25 جانفي 1921 / 15 جمادى الاولى 1339 LE TRÉSORIER GÉNÉRAL DE TUNIS LE DIRECTEUR GÉNÉRAL DES FINANCES VALEUR ÉCHANGEABLE CONTRE DES BILLETS DE LA BANQUE DE L'ALGÉRIE عافة التذكرة قابلة لمبادلة بتذاكر البانكة الجزائرية PROTECTORAT FRANÇAIS LITH. YVORRA & BARLIER, TUNIS |
| Reverse description | Printed in the same salmon-red palette as the obverse, the reverse carries a dense guilloche underprint formed by repetition of the text DIRECTIONGENERALEDESFINANCES arranged in concentric horizontal bands filling the central oval field. At top and bottom of this oval, DIRECTION GÉNÉRALE DES FINANCES appears in arched letterpress inscriptions. The same two seated allegorical figures — the turbaned male scholar at lower left and the draped female with amphora at lower right — frame the composition, echoing the obverse vignettes, while the Moorish crenellated border and crescent-star corner motifs repeat across the top edge and corner panels. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
The Direction Générale des Finances issued these small-denomination notes under the French Protectorate administration, a bureaucratic arrangement that placed French financial officials in effective control of Tunisian fiscal policy while preserving the nominal authority of the Bey. The 1921 date places this note in the postwar period when metallic coin shortages across the Mediterranean basin still pushed governments toward low-denomination paper as a stopgap.
Printed locally by Yvorra & Barlier in Tunis rather than dispatched from a metropolitan French security printer, which is unusual for colonial-era French protectorate issues — most relied on Paris or Bordeaux houses for their fiduciary paper. Local lithographic production kept costs down but limited the sophistication of anti-counterfeiting measures available.