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1000 Pounds
| Issuer | West African Currency Board |
|---|---|
| Year | 1954 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Paper |
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| Obverse description | Unadorned white face dominated by elaborate calligraphic lettering in a Gothic script style, with the issuer title and promise-to-pay legend rendered in large ornate blackletter. Denomination panels of £1000 appear at upper right and lower left in guilloche-engraved cartouches with zigzag borders. Arabic script denomination is inscribed centrally below the English legend, with five facsimile signatures of Board members and the Chairman arranged in the lower centre, dated 26th April 1954 at lower right; a pin-perforated SPECIMEN overprint appears at centre right. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Essentially blank white reverse with faint ghost impression of the obverse lettering visible through the paper. A pin-perforated SPECIMEN cancellation appears diagonally in the lower left quadrant, confirming the trial status of the note. |
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| Comments |
The West African Currency Board served British West Africa — Nigeria, Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia — as a shared monetary authority from 1912 until each territory established its own central bank around independence. By 1954, that process was already underway; Ghana's independence came in 1957, and the WACB's days were numbered. A £1000 denomination at this late stage was never intended for retail commerce. Notes at this level moved between colonial treasuries and clearing banks, with individual pieces representing sums far exceeding annual wages for most of the population.
This example bears a specimen perforation, meaning it was punched through before distribution to authorized recipients — banks, finance ministries, currency boards — as a reference copy, legally valueless and impossible to pass. De La Rue's specimen perforations of this period are typically clean and precise, the cancellation method of choice over ink overprinting for high-denomination material.