Catalog
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| Issuer | Banque de Syrie et du Grand-Liban |
|---|---|
| Year | 1925-1930 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | سوريا بنك سوريا والبنان الكبير عشر ليرات CL. SERVEAU FEC E. DELOCHE SC. |
| Reverse description | The reverse is printed in warm red-brown tones with an elaborate arabesque border surrounding the entire note. A large intaglio vignette at centre-left presents the Temple of Venus at Baalbek, rendered with fine architectural detail against a lightly clouded sky, with trees and ruins in the foreground. Denomination numerals 10 appear in each corner, with the French inscriptions in letterpress below the central vignette and a blank guilloche panel at right reserved for the serial number. |
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| Comments |
The Banque de Syrie et du Grand-Liban was a French concessionary institution, not a state central bank — its note-issuing authority derived from a 1924 French mandate arrangement that placed Lebanese and Syrian currency under effective Parisian control. Printing by the Banque de France was deliberate policy, keeping production physically and administratively within France.
Serveau and Deloche were a serious pairing. Deloche engraved for the Banque de France on major French metropolitan issues of the same period, and his work on mandate-territory notes brings the same intaglio depth found on contemporary French domestic paper.
The P#26 series spans a five-year window that overlapped with considerable instability — the Great Syrian Revolt of 1925–27 disrupted commerce across the mandate, and notes of this type would have circulated against that backdrop.