Catalog
10 Piastres
| Issuer | République Syrienne |
|---|---|
| Year | 1942 |
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| Printer | Survey of Egypt, Cairo, Egypt (1822-date) |
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| Obverse description | Brown monochrome note with an ornate guilloche border frame. At right, an oval vignette presents a detailed engraved view of a mosque with minarets reflected on water. Arabic script inscriptions appear at upper centre and lower centre, with two manuscript signatures below the central text, and the date in Arabic numerals at the bottom. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Blue monochrome note with an elaborate guilloche border and rosette ornaments at each corner. The large bold numeral '10' appears at left and right, with the word 'PIASTRES' set within a central guilloche underprint medallion. The title 'REPUBLIQUE SYRIENNE' is printed in large letters across the top, with two signature lines below identified by their respective titles. |
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| Comments |
The Caisse Centrale de la France Libre — operating through the Délégation Générale de la France Libre au Levant — issued this note under the banner of the République Syrienne while Syria was under the Free French mandate authority. The 1942 dating places it squarely in the period when Vichy French forces had been expelled from the Levant following the Syria-Lebanon Campaign of 1941, and the Free French scrambled to establish functional currency arrangements for both Syria and Lebanon.
Printing was contracted to the Survey of Egypt in Cairo, the same institution that handled cartographic and security printing for British administration across the region. The political fiction of a sovereign République Syrienne issuing its own notes was useful; the practical infrastructure behind those notes was entirely Anglo-French.