1 Shilling

Hugh Marshall Hole was Civil Commissioner of Bulawayo during the second Anglo-Boer War period, when the disruption of supply lines from the south created an acute shortage of small-denomination coin throughout Matabeleland. This card note — printed locally by the Chronicle Printing Works, which was the press behind the Bulawayo Chronicle — was an improvised solution, authorised by Hole personally and validated by official stamp and his own signature rather than any formal banking mechanism.

The Chronicle press had no banknote printing equipment. What came off it was functionally a signed chit, not a security document. That frailty is the point: these circulated on Hole's personal authority alone.