2 Thalers / Birr

The Bank of Ethiopia, chartered in 1931 with majority shareholding held by the Ethiopian government, was the country's first wholly indigenous central bank — earlier banking in Ethiopia had been controlled by the Bank of Abyssinia, itself a concession granted to the National Bank of Egypt. This note belongs to the bank's inaugural series, issued just two years before the Italian invasion rendered the institution effectively defunct by 1936.

Bradbury Wilkinson's engraved intaglio work on this series is notably fine for a first issue from a newly established institution. The dual denomination — Thalers and Birr — reflects the coexistence of the traditional Maria Theresa Thaler in everyday trade alongside the official Birr, a distinction that mattered practically in highland markets well into the 1930s.