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Auction: 18015 - World and British Banknotes
Lot: 290

German East Africa, a British contemporary forgery of a 20 rupien, 15 March 1915, manuscript red serial number 1331, black text on pale pink cardlike paper, two signatures below, reverse text and handstamped serial number 02682 at top left and low right
(Pick 44b, Rosenberg Fa 905), provenance: from the family of Thomas Crawford Penn who served in British Intelligence in German East Africa during 1918. Thomas Penn was seconded to the Intelligence section of the British Army in East Africa under the command of Richard Meinhertzhagen. Meinhertzhagen was the man responsible for producing copies of German currency used to pay the Askaris with the intention of devaluing the German currency. This scheme was unsuccessful as the notes were easily detectable and most were destroyed, any surviving examples are correspondingly rare. Extremely fine and very rare and interesting

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Sold for
£1,800