10 Livres

The Banque de Syrie et du Liban was a French-mandated private institution — essentially a colonial concession bank, not a central bank in any modern sense — and its notes circulated under authority ultimately answerable to Paris rather than Damascus or Beirut. By 1939, the political footing beneath it was already unstable: the French mandate was under pressure, the Alexandretta question had just been settled against Syrian interests, and war in Europe was weeks away.

Bradbury Wilkinson produced some of the most technically accomplished intaglio work of any British security printer, and the Syrie et Liban commissions across this period reflect that quality. The 1939 dating places this note at the very edge of a print run that would soon be disrupted by wartime production demands on London's security printers.