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!
1000 Piastres Siege of Khartoum
| Issuer | General Charles George Gordon (Governor-General of the Sudan) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1884 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Rectangular |
| 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 | Plain paper note hand-written in Arabic script, with the denomination cartouche at top centre in a decorative pointed frame. The body of the note carries a handwritten Arabic text promising payment from the treasury of Khartoum, dated and bearing an official Ottoman crescent-and-star circular seal at lower left. The note is countersigned at lower left by General Charles George Gordon, whose Latin-script signature appears below the Arabic text, alongside a second faint official stamp. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Reverse is plain unprinted paper with no text, vignettes, or design elements, showing only the natural aged tone of the original stock. |
| 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 |
Gordon issued these notes inside besieged Khartoum from March 1884 onward, as the Mahdist forces cut off all external supply and the city's treasury ran dry. They are among the very few examples in banknote history of a military commander personally signing emergency currency into existence under active siege conditions — Gordon's signature appears on each note as both authorization and guarantee, backed by nothing more than the promise of a relief column that never arrived in time.
Printed locally with whatever materials were available, the notes circulated within the city walls until the fall of Khartoum on 26 January 1885, when Gordon was killed. Survivors who escaped with notes had no issuing authority left to redeem them.