Catalog
1 Pound
| Issuer | Government of the British Solomon Islands |
|---|---|
| Year | 1916-1932 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Pound sterling (1916-1933) |
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| Obverse description | The British Royal Arms vignette is positioned at top centre, flanked on either side by the issuer title split across the upper field. The denomination ONE POUND is printed in bold letterpress within a central guilloche-bordered panel, with £1 numerals in ornate frames at left and right. The lower portion carries the date line, issuer imprint, and three manuscript signatures of the Commissioners of Currency, all set against a blue guilloche underprint on cream paper. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse is essentially unprinted, presenting a plain cream paper surface with faint ghost impressions from the obverse visible through the paper. A manuscript annotation in Japanese characters appears in the upper right corner, likely a collector or wartime notation added after issue. |
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| Comments |
The British Solomon Islands Protectorate had no banking infrastructure at all in this period — no commercial bank operated there until the 1950s. These pound notes were issued directly by the colonial government to meet basic administrative and trading needs in a territory where copra was still a more reliable medium of exchange than paper currency among much of the local population.
Pick 3 is genuinely rare. The entire series of government currency notes from this protectorate survives in very small numbers, a consequence of the climate, the limited circulation network, and wartime destruction during the Japanese occupation of the Solomons from 1942 onward — which postdates this issue but consumed much of what remained in government hands.