10 Birr / Ethiopian Dollars

The State Bank of Ethiopia was itself a short-lived institution — established in 1942 and dissolved in 1963 when its functions were split between a new central bank and a separate commercial bank. This note falls squarely within that transitional period, issued under Emperor Haile Selassie's administration as Ethiopia was slowly rebuilding financial infrastructure following Italian occupation and wartime disruption.

Bradbury Wilkinson handled much of the Commonwealth-adjacent printing work of that era, and their New Malden facility produced notes for a remarkable range of newly asserting or reorganizing states through the 1950s. P#20 is the highest denomination in the series.