Catalog
20 Shillings
| Issuer | Government of Nigeria |
|---|---|
| Year | 1918 |
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| Reference(s) | P#1B |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | NIGERIA Government of Nigeria TWENTY SHILLINGS 20/- Issued under Ord. XXII, 1918. These Currency Notes are Legal Tender for the payment of any amount. LAGOS. December, 1918. Treasurer. No. |
| Reverse description | Unprinted plain cream paper reverse, showing a strong letterpress offset impression of the obverse design in mirror image, including all inscriptions and the guilloche denomination panel, as a result of the single-sided local printing process. |
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| Comments |
Nigeria's earliest paper currency was authorized under the West African Currency Board, but this 1918 issue carries the Government of Nigeria imprint directly — a consequence of wartime disruption to normal WACB supply channels. Local printing in Lagos was an improvised solution; the metropolitan printers simply could not reliably service West African territories during the later years of the First World War.
MacGregor's signature as signatory places this in a very narrow administrative window. Notes locally produced under these conditions are typically rough by metropolitan standards, and the paper stock used in Lagos was not purpose-made currency stock.