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10 Birr / Ethiopian Dollars
| Issuer | State Bank of Ethiopia |
|---|---|
| Year | 1945-1956 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | የኢትዮጵያ፡መንግስት፡ባንክ፡ አሥር፡የኢትዮጵያ፡ብር፡ ላምጪው፡አንዴከፈል፡ሕግ፡ያሰገዽዷል። STATE BANK OF ETHIOPIA TEN ETHIOPIAN DOLLARS (Translation: State Bank of Ethiopia Ten Ethiopian Birr Payable to the Bearer on Demand) |
| Reverse description | The reverse is printed entirely in red and centres on an oval vignette of the crowned Lion of Judah standing in a landscape with mountains in the background, enclosed within an elaborate scrollwork frame. Guilloche latticework fills the surrounding field, with the numeral 10 in large figures at each side. The denomination in Amharic script appears in a rectangular panel along the lower margin. |
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| Comments |
Ethiopia's postwar monetary infrastructure was thin, and the State Bank of Ethiopia — established in 1942 as a joint venture with the National Bank of Egypt — served simultaneously as central and commercial bank until the two functions were formally separated in 1963. The dual denomination on this note, pairing Birr with Ethiopian Dollars, reflects a deliberate transitional nomenclature: the Maria Theresa thaler had dominated Ethiopian commerce for centuries, and local acceptance of a paper birr required anchoring it to something already legible to a skeptical public.
Security Banknote Company of Philadelphia printed several African issues during this period, but their Ethiopian work is among the less-documented commissions in the firm's history. Three distinct signature combinations — Blowers, Bennett, and Rozell — indicate the series spans multiple senior appointments at the bank across its eleven-year run.