12½ Cents

Fiji's Cakobau government — the short-lived constitutional monarchy under Ratu Seru Epenisa Cakobau, recognized by the British but never formally colonized until 1874 — issued these fractional notes to address a chronic shortage of small-denomination coin in the islands. The 12½ cent value is a direct inheritance of the old Spanish-American real system, where eight reales equaled one dollar and one real thus equaled 12½ cents. That arithmetic had already vanished from most of the world by the 1870s.

Printed locally in Levuka, the colonial capital, these are among the very few government notes produced entirely within Fiji before annexation.