1 Pound

The Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony issued this note under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Japanese forces occupied the Gilbert Islands in late 1941, and the colonial government — operating from whatever remained of its administrative footing — needed currency to function. This series was a direct wartime emergency measure, not a peacetime printing exercise.

The embossed seal as the primary security feature reflects the stripped-down production conditions of 1942. No intaglio, no watermarked paper from a specialist security printer — just an impressed seal, the kind of authentication a colonial office could apply locally without access to a professional banknote press.

Pick lists only a handful of surviving specimens, and the series has a documented scarcity that predates collector interest.