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 Shilling
| Issuer | Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony Government |
|---|---|
| Year | 1942 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 1 Shilling (1/20) |
| 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 | Plain unadorned emergency issue on white paper, printed in black letterpress. The upper portion carries the colony's title across the top, beneath which the authorizing text appears in two registers flanking the central denomination legend ONE SHILLING in bold type, with the value expressed in figures as 1s. 0d. repeated at both lower corners. The date 1st January, 1942 is printed at the lower left, with two manuscript signatures above their respective printed titles — Acting Resident Commissioner and Treasurer — at the lower right. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Reverse entirely plain, printed on unadorned white paper with no design elements, vignettes, or text, consistent with the emergency wartime issue nature of this note. |
| 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 Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony issued this note in 1942 under direct wartime necessity — Japanese forces had already occupied Tarawa and much of the Gilbert group, and the colonial administration was operating in drastically reduced circumstances from Funafuti in the Ellice Islands. Small-denomination emergency currency of this kind was produced to keep basic commerce functioning among a displaced civilian population and military personnel.
The P#1 designation confirms this is the first formal paper issue for the territory. Surviving examples are genuinely rare; the islands' equatorial humidity was punishing on paper, and wartime destruction accounts for much of the rest.