Catalog
10 Israel Pounds
| Issuer | Bank Leumi Le-Israel B.M. |
|---|---|
| Year | 1952-1954 |
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| Size | 158 × 82 mm |
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| Obverse description | The face is dominated by intricate guilloche underprint patterns across the entire field. The denomination and issuer name appear in Hebrew script, reading 'Bank Leumi Le-Israel B.M.' and 'Ten Israel Pounds.' The full legal tender clause is inscribed in Hebrew around the central area of the note. |
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| Obverse lettering | 10 בנק לאומי לישראל בע"מ ישלם למוכ"ז עשר לירות ישראליות הבנק יקבל השטר הזה לשלם תשלום בכל חשבון שהוא מטבע חוקית לתשלום כל סכום שהוא (Translation: Bank Leumi Le-Israel B.M. Will pay to the bearer Ten Israel Pounds The bank will accept this note for payment in any account Legal tender for payment of any amount) |
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| Comments |
Bank Leumi Le-Israel B.M. — literally "National Bank of Israel" — was a commercial bank, not a central authority, yet it functioned as Israel's de facto note-issuing institution in the years before the Bank of Israel was established in 1954. These notes were technically private bank obligations, a legally awkward arrangement the new state inherited from the Anglo-Palestine Bank structure and tolerated only as a transitional measure.
The American Bank Note Company contract placed production firmly in New York, a deliberate choice by a government with no domestic printing capacity and limited trust in regional alternatives. At over twelve million printed, this was not a scarce issue in origin — attrition from heavy circulation is what drives scarcity today.