10 Palestine Pounds Provisional Issue

The Anglo-Palestine Bank issued this provisional note in 1948 under extraordinary circumstances: the British Mandate was collapsing, the State of Israel had not yet formally established a central bank, and the new government needed a functioning currency within days. The Anglo-Palestine Bank — a commercial institution, not a central bank — was pressed into service as a temporary issuing authority, essentially printing a national currency by necessity rather than design.

The "provisional" designation is literal. These notes were overprinted or adapted from existing bank stock to serve an entire new state's monetary needs until the Bank of Israel opened in 1954. Survival rates vary sharply by denomination; the higher values saw less circulation but were also printed in smaller quantities.