20 Shillings / 1 Pound - George V

The East African Currency Board was established in 1919 to provide a unified currency across British East Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, and Zanzibar — replacing the Indian rupee, which had circulated in the region since the late nineteenth century. The rupee's demonetization was politically contentious; the switch to a sterling-linked shilling system was partly a deliberate move to sever the economic ties that had bound East African commerce more closely to India than to London.

Pick 15 is among the earliest issues of the Board. De La Rue held the printing contract throughout the interwar period, and the 1921 date places this note in the very first years of the new monetary regime.