5 Piastres

Egypt's 5 Piastres note of 1920 belongs to a series issued directly by the Egyptian Government rather than the National Bank of Egypt — a distinction that mattered legally and politically. Under the capitulations system still nominally in place, the Egyptian Government had limited autonomous financial authority, making these small treasury notes something of an assertion of administrative control over petty currency at a moment when nationalist sentiment, following the 1919 revolution, was running high.

Bradbury Wilkinson's involvement places this firmly in the tradition of British colonial and semi-colonial currency production. The firm handled security printing for dozens of dependent or occupied territories during this period.