Catalog
1 Shilling Cut piece of 2 Shillings
| Issuer | Government of Cyprus |
|---|---|
| Year | 1919 |
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| Value | 1 Shilling (1/20) |
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| Obverse description | Letterpress-printed in green and black on plain paper. The denomination "1/-" and the legend "ONE SHILLING" appear at the top centre, with the issuing authority inscription centred in the lower portion. The note represents a bisected cut from the original 2 Shillings emergency issue, a practice adopted during wartime currency shortages. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 1/- ONE SHILLING Issued by the Govt. of Cyprus. |
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| Comments |
Cyprus's wartime fiscal measures pushed the colonial administration into some awkward solutions. The 2 Shillings note (P#11) was officially bisected and each half declared legal tender for 1 Shilling — a practice more common to stamps than to banknotes, and a frank acknowledgment that small-denomination currency was simply unavailable in sufficient quantity during and immediately after the First World War.
The cut itself was meant to be diagonal, making each half visually distinct. Notes with straight or irregular cuts — and there are many — raise questions about whether the bisection was done officially or in the field.