Catalog
10 Piastres Alexandria Internment Camp
| Issuer | Alien Internment Camp, Alexandria |
|---|---|
| Year | 1914-1921 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Pound (1916-date) |
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| Obverse description | Plain cream paper voucher with black letterpress text arranged across the face, bearing the camp authority and denomination inscriptions. A red handwritten signature is applied diagonally across the centre, and a blue letterpress denomination stamp reading TEN PIASTRES is struck diagonally in the lower right area. A vertical ruled line runs through the centre of the note, and a manuscript serial number appears in the lower right field. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | ALIEN INTERNMENT CAMP ALEXANDRIA VALUED 10 P. T. TEN PIASTRES No... |
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| Comments |
During the First World War, the British military interned enemy nationals — primarily Austro-Hungarian and German civilians — in camps across Egypt, which was then under British administration. Alexandria's internment camp issued its own scrip to control internal commerce, keeping detainees away from Egyptian currency markets entirely. These privately circulating camp notes occupy a genuinely odd space: neither military scrip in the conventional sense nor civilian banknotes, but instruments of a captive economy with no external legal standing.
Surviving examples are rare. Attrition within camp environments was high, and there was no formal redemption mechanism that would have driven notes back to an issuing authority for preservation.