DIX NOONAN WEBB OFFER RARE PALESTINIAN BANKNOTES

A group of rare Palestinian banknotes issued during Britain’s League of Nations Mandate to administer the territory will be among the highlights of the auction of Paper Money to be held by Dix Noonan Webb, the international coins, medals, paper money and jewellery specialists, in London on 24 April 2017. All are dated 30 September 1929 and are colour trial notes which have come from the same private source.

The rarest of this extraordinary group is a Fifty Pounds note issued by the Palestine Currency Board which is almost impossible to find as an issued note but occasionally available as a specimen. Dix Noonan Webb has no record of a Fifty Pounds colour trial note being on the market in recent years and it is expected to fetch £30,000 to £40,000. The Ten Pounds note in the group is estimated at £12,000 to £15,000, the Five Pounds at £8,000 to £10,000 and the One Pound at £6,000 to £8,000. Colour trials are the stage before specimen notes are issued. At this point the design of the note has been agreed and the authorities then have to decide on the colours to be used. Colour trials are much scarcer than specimen notes.

The first paper money issued under the British Mandate for Palestine was dated 1 September 1927 and the second was on 30 September 1929 – the date on all the notes to be auctioned by Dix Noonan Webb. The Fifty Pounds, Ten Pounds and Five Pounds notes depict the Tower of Ramla or Ramleh, while the One Pound denomination has an image of the Dome of the Rock.

Britain was given a Mandate to administer Palestine by the League of Nations in 1922. Previously the territory had been part of the Ottoman Empire which collapsed following its decision to side with Germany during the First World War. The tensions between Arabs and Jews which remain in the Middle East today were in evidence throughout much of the period of British administration between the two World Wars. Britain terminated its Mandate in May 1948 following the decision of the United Nations General Assembly to partition Palestine.

For more information on the sale, see:
www.dnw.co.uk

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