5 Scellini / 5 Somali Shillings

The Banca Nazionale Somala was established in 1960 following the merger of the former Italian Trust Territory of Somalia and British Somaliland into the independent Somali Republic. This bilingual denomination — scellini in Italian, shillings in English — reflects that awkward unification of two colonial currency traditions under a single national bank, a compromise that lasted only until the institution was reorganized as the Somali National Bank in 1968, which also marks the end of this series.

Thomas De La Rue handled the entire first-generation note program for the new republic. The 1966–1968 date range covers relatively few printing cycles, and the series was superseded before wide rural penetration, so heavily circulated survivors are less common than the urban-worn urban examples typically seen at auction.