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5 Piastres Alexandria Internment Camp
| Issuer | Alien Internment Camp, Alexandria |
|---|---|
| Year | 1914-1921 |
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| Composition | Paper |
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| Obverse description | Plain cream paper with black letterpress text arranged in three lines across the upper and central portion of the voucher. A vertical red stripe runs centrally down the face, serving as a rudimentary security element. A handwritten red ink signature crosses the central text area diagonally, with a printed serial number in black at the lower right. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Reverse is entirely plain, with no printed text, vignettes, or ornamentation; the aged cream paper shows natural foxing and toning consistent with the period. |
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| Comments |
British forces established internment camps across Egypt following the Ottoman Empire's entry into the war in late 1914, and Alexandria became one of the principal sites for holding enemy aliens — primarily Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian nationals caught in Egypt at the outbreak of hostilities. These camps required internal scrip to allow detainees to purchase goods within the wire without handling official Egyptian or British currency, which authorities considered a security risk.
The Alexandria camp issues are among the least documented of the First World War internment scrip series. Attribution and dating remain contested — the 1914–1921 window spans both wartime internment and the post-armistice period when many detainees awaited repatriation, and it is not certain whether a single continuous issue covered the whole period or whether successive printings occurred.