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5 Dollars Lethbridge; PoW Camp
| Issuer | Internment Camp 133 (Lethbridge, Alberta) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1942-1945 |
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| Printer | Bulman Brothers, Winnipeg, Canada |
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| Obverse description | Black letterpress print on yellow-ochre paper. The central denomination $5.00 is printed in large bold figures, flanked by ornamental corner devices. "P.W.C." appears at top centre, "Internment Camp 133" runs vertically along the left border, "Lethbridge, Alta." is at foot centre, and the printer's imprint "BULMAN BROS. WPG." runs vertically along the right margin. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Internment Camp 133 P.W.C. $5.00 Lethbridge, Alta. BULMAN BROS. WPG. |
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| Comments |
Camp 133 at Lethbridge was the largest prisoner-of-war camp in Canada during the Second World War, holding German prisoners — overwhelmingly Afrika Korps veterans — in numbers that at peak exceeded 12,000 men. The internal scrip issued there was a practical necessity: Geneva Convention obligations required that working prisoners be compensated, but Canadian authorities were not about to let enemy nationals handle real currency. Bulman Brothers of Winnipeg, a commercial print house better known for farm supply catalogues and trade ephemera, produced the series.
The $5 denomination was the highest in the camp series, and high-value scrip at Lethbridge is meaningfully harder to find than the lower denominations — prisoners had less occasion to spend it and more reason to save or conceal it.