1 Rupie

Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Bank's 1915 emergency currency was born from a naval blockade. With supply lines to Germany severed after August 1914, the colonial administration in German East Africa could no longer import printed notes from Europe. The 1 Rupie notes that followed were produced locally under improvised conditions — a fact visible in the crude typography and inconsistent ink coverage that specialists use to distinguish genuine wartime issues from later imitations.

Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck's campaign to tie down Allied forces across East Africa until the armistice meant these notes circulated far longer than any colonial emergency currency had business doing — some remained nominally in use into 1918.