10 Pounds 'National Bank'

The National Bank of Libya was established in 1955, just four years after the country's independence under King Idris — a remarkably short runway from colonial banking arrangements to a sovereign institution issuing its own high-denomination notes. This 10 Pound note, printed by Bradbury Wilkinson at their New Malden works, appeared during a period of acute economic transition, before oil revenues had transformed Libyan public finances. The 1959 oil discoveries would render this entire monetary chapter almost immediately obsolete.

Bradbury Wilkinson's intaglio work on this series is notably fine for a first-generation issue from a young central bank with limited ordering leverage.