Catalog
1 Anna WW II Cash Coupon
| Issuer | Palitana State |
|---|---|
| Year | |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 56.5 × 43 mm |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Printed in red-brown on buff pressboard stock, the obverse carries a central oval vignette with a bust portrait of Thakor Shri Bahadursinghji, flanked by decorative scrollwork and small animal motifs within a rectangular border. A Gujarati inscription reading "જનરલ સ્ટેમ્પ" (General Stamp) appears in a panel above the portrait, while "પાલીતાણા સ્ટેટ" (Palitana State) is inscribed in a panel below. The denomination "એક આનો" (One Anna) is hand-lettered in bold black Gujarati script across the top of the note. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | એક આનો |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
Palitana was a minor princely state in Kathiawar (present-day Gujarat) whose ruler held limited fiscal authority under British paramountcy. These wartime cash coupons — pressboard rather than true banknote paper — were emergency local scrip, issued when metal coinage became genuinely scarce across the subcontinent during the Second World War. The colonial administration had been draining copper and nickel out of circulation for war production, and dozens of small Indian states responded with improvised low-denomination substitutes like this one.
The pressboard substrate makes surviving examples particularly vulnerable to delamination and edge splitting — not a grading observation, but a structural fact about the material itself.