The Imperial Bank of Persia was a British concession, chartered in 1889 under a grant from Naser al-Din Shah that gave it the exclusive right to issue banknotes in Persia. That concession was always politically contentious, and by the mid-1920s the newly consolidated Pahlavi government under Reza Shah was actively working to reclaim Iranian control over state banking. This 1927 note was issued in the final years before that arrangement collapsed — the bank lost its note-issuing rights in 1930 when Bank Melli Iran was established as the national state bank.
Waterlow & Sons printed the series throughout, a firm responsible for a significant share of British colonial and concession-bank currency during this period. The relatively short window of the P#14's active circulation, combined with Persian banknotes' historically low survival rates, makes intact examples genuinely uncommon.
The Imperial Bank of Persia was a British concession, chartered in 1889 under a grant from Naser al-Din Shah that gave it the exclusive right to issue banknotes in Persia. That concession was always politically contentious, and by the mid-1920s the newly consolidated Pahlavi government under Reza Shah was actively working to reclaim Iranian control over state banking. This 1927 note was issued in the final years before that arrangement collapsed — the bank lost its note-issuing rights in 1930 when Bank Melli Iran was established as the national state bank.
Waterlow & Sons printed the series throughout, a firm responsible for a significant share of British colonial and concession-bank currency during this period. The relatively short window of the P#14's active circulation, combined with Persian banknotes' historically low survival rates, makes intact examples genuinely uncommon.