5 Dollars

Fiji's earliest paper currency predates the cession of the islands to Britain by three years — this note was issued under the short-lived constitutional monarchy of Ratu Seru Epenisa Cakobau, whose government was perpetually cash-starved and dependent on settler commerce centered at Levuka. The Treasury notes of 1871 were a practical necessity, not a formal banking exercise, and the Gazette Office that printed them was primarily a newspaper operation.

Signatories Burt and Hennings were colonial officials rather than professional bankers. Surviving examples are extraordinarily rare; the entire Cakobau government apparatus collapsed in 1874, and most of its financial instruments were rendered void almost immediately upon cession.