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50 Para

Issuer Serbian Postal Administration
Year 1915
Type Standard circulation banknote
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Obverse description Printed in a reddish-brown tone on plain paper, this postal currency note bears the denomination '50 п.' in the upper left and the Cyrillic inscription 'СРБИЈА' (Serbia) across the top. The central vignette presents a letterpress-style scene of King Peter I on the battlefield, with a seated figure in the foreground and a group of standing military figures to the right, set against a hilly landscape. Along the lower margin runs the Cyrillic legend 'КРАЉ ПЕТАР НА БОЈИШТУ 1914.' The note's perforated edges are characteristic of its stamp-based postal currency format.
Obverse lettering 50 п.
СРБИЈА
КРАЉ ПЕТАР НА БОЈИШТУ 1914.
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Comments

In 1915, with Serbian banks evacuated and the formal monetary system collapsing under Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian invasion, the Postal Administration stepped in as an emergency issuing authority — an arrangement with no peacetime precedent. These fractional notes were a stopgap, intended to address the acute shortage of small change that had made everyday transactions nearly impossible.

The choice of the postal service as issuer reflects how completely the regular state financial apparatus had broken down by that point in the war.