Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
100 Livres SYRIE 1939
| Issuer | Banque de Syrie et du Grand-Liban |
|---|---|
| Year | 1939 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Paper |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Central vignette of the Bank of Beirut building, printed in dark blue-violet with a guilloche underprint, flanked by the denomination numeral 100 at lower left. The overprint SYRIE 1939 appears in red across the centre of the note, with the bank title in large letterpress across the upper field. Arabic text and serial number P064944 appear in two positions, with manuscript signatures and a date at lower centre. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Central oval vignette of a panoramic town view set against a mountainous background, printed in brown tones with an elaborate guilloche border framing the composition. Arabic inscriptions appear at upper centre within a cartouche, with the denomination numerals 100 flanking the central design at left and right. The legend CENT LIVRES SYRIENNES is set in bold letterpress across the lower portion of the note. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
By 1939, the Banque de Syrie et du Grand-Liban was operating under a French mandate that had less than a decade of life left in it. This high-denomination note was printed in London by Bradbury Wilkinson — a deliberate choice, as the firm's intaglio work was considered harder to counterfeit than anything available in France at the time, and the mandate authorities were acutely conscious of currency credibility in a politically unstable territory.
The P#39 series went through multiple suffix varieties, and 39E specifically is among the scarcer of them. Wartime disruption to the Franco-Syrian financial arrangement, particularly after the fall of France in 1940, complicated both distribution and eventual redemption of notes from this print run.