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20 Shillings / 1 Pound - George V
| Issuer | East African Currency Board |
|---|---|
| Year | 1933 |
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| Printer | Thomas De La Rue & Company, London, United Kingdom |
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| Obverse description | Portrait of King George V in an oval vignette at upper right, set against a fine guilloche underprint in olive-green and brown tones. The denomination numeral '20' appears in large format at upper left and lower left corners within ornate frames, with the issuer's title across the top. Bilingual denomination panels in Arabic and Gujarati script appear in the centre band, with the legal tender clause and place of issue 'Nairobi, 1st January 1933' at the foot, accompanied by three manuscript signatures of Board members. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Central vignette of a lion walking left, set against a background of mountains rendered in intaglio, enclosed within a circular frame flanked by the numeral '20' on each side. The composition is framed by intricate geometric guilloche borders in warm brown, with the denomination legend repeated in two horizontal banners above and below the central design. |
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| Comments |
The East African Currency Board was a colonial monetary authority covering Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika — a single issuer serving territories under separate administrative arrangements. The 1933 date places this note squarely in the Depression years, when commodity prices for cotton and sisal had collapsed and the region's export economy was under severe strain. Demand for circulating currency was correspondingly low, and print runs for this period were modest.
De La Rue had held the East African contract for decades, and the P#22 series continued that relationship without interruption. Notes from the early 1930s are notably scarcer than later wartime issues, which were produced in far greater volume to meet military and administrative needs from 1940 onward.