World Banknotes

Lot 3173    SESSION 11 (4.30pm Thursday)    World Banknotes

Estimate $15,000
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $31,000

FIJI, Government of Fiji, World War II provisional issue, five pounds, undated (issued Jan - Nov 1942 - old date 1.8.1934), overprinted on Reserve Bank of New Zealand, L. Lefeaux five pounds (P.156), "Reserve Bank of New Zealand" watermarked paper, without Thomas de la Rue imprint, green serial number 5K 838096 (P.46b; RC.59b). Crisp original body, very light vertical folds and three minute spots in bottom left margin, extremely fine and very rare, being the finest of less than ten known notes, this example having never been on the market previously.

American and other armed forces personnel serving in the Pacific during World War II were almost entirely responsible for the shortage of currency that Fiji found itself facing during wartime, the troops having souvenired most of it. The circumstances surrounding this issue of notes is not well documented, but the I.B.N.S. journal of March 1971 by H.J. Lorimer throws some light on these very rare emergency notes. Reserve Bank of New Zealand No.1 issue, ten shillings, one pound and five pound notes were printed by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Melbourne on paper supplied from stocks held in Wellington and Melbourne. The Australian printed notes were originally intended as an emergency supply for possible issue in New Zealand, but found not to be needed. After receiving a request from the Fijian Government, one pounds with prefixes of 1D and 6D and five pounds with prefixes of 4K and 5K were overprinted by the Government Printer, Wellington for emergency issue in Fiji. Ten shilling notes with a serial prefix FX/0 and pounds with the prefix FI/0 were printed and overprinted by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia on locally supplied paper. The ten shilling notes were never issued but an example of a numbered note is known to be held by a bank in Fiji. New Zealand notes at this time were printed in London by Thomas de la Rue & Co, but it was thought too risky to rely on supplies coming from London due to the bombing there and also potential problems with shipping banknotes to the other side of the world during wartime. There was an immediate need for currency in Fiji and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand were able to come to her aid by using the unwanted stocks of Lefeaux notes. The serial numbers for the issued five pound overprints were 4K 825001 - 4K 831000, 5K 831001 - 5K 851000 and 5K 859001 - 5K 864000. A small run of only 31,000 notes. It is unknown if all were issued but most of the notes had been withdrawn from circulation by 1950. Some catalogues state that all the overprinted denominations were on un-watermarked paper. This is obviously not the case as this note and the previous lot are both printed on watermarked paper, albeit a much lighter watermark than paper procured for New Zealand notes by De la Rue. We suspect that the paper supplied from Wellington was watermarked and that supplied by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia was not.