10 Lire Italian occupation

The Cassa Mediterranea di Credito was not a bank in any conventional sense — it was a purpose-built occupation finance mechanism, deployed by Italy to manage currency in conquered territories without formally integrating them into the lira zone. The Sudan series was prepared in 1940 following Italy's push into British-held East Africa, anticipating administrative control that never solidified. Notes were printed and held ready; actual circulation was limited and geographically patchy.

The printer, IPZS, was the Italian state's own production house — no outsourcing, no commercial security printers. That institutional chain matters: these notes were a government-to-government instrument from the start, not a commercial banking product dressed in colonial clothing.