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Auction: 408 - World Banknotes at NYINC
Lot: 219

The Zanzibar Government, 1 Rupee, 1st September 1920, black serial number A/1 00350,

The lowest serial number recorded for the 1 Rupee by a considerable margin. To the knowledge of the cataloguers, this is the only example recorded, the previous lowest known being A/1 18707. The left panel features a traditional dhow sailing along the coast, while at right a vignette depicts clove harvesters at work using a three-legged ladder. Below are the printed signatures of John Sinclair and Jasper Corbett Davis.

In the world of paper money, few issues are as sought after as those of Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous territory in modern-day Tanzania. Over the last five centuries, the archipelago was successively occupied by Portugal, Oman, and Great Britain, rising to global prominence in the nineteenth century as the world’s largest exporter of cloves. In 1890, the Sultanate of Zanzibar formally became a British Protectorate. Monetary reforms followed in 1908 with the introduction of the Zanzibar Rupee, replacing the earlier ryal and fixed at parity with the Indian Rupee. In 1936, all Zanzibari banknotes were withdrawn from circulation and demonetised upon the territory’s entry into the East African Currency Board monetary zone. While other denominations of this series were printed by Waterlow & Sons, the 1 Rupee stands apart as the sole denomination produced by Thomas De La Rue & Company, and as the lowest and most frequently used denomination in everyday circulation within a tropical climate, the 1 Rupee note has an exceptionally low survival rate. Moreover, unlike the majority of sought-after countries in the world of banknote collecting, for which a collector may eventually acquire at least one example, banknotes from Zanzibar, regardless of denomination or condition, are exceptionally scarce and rarely encountered. As is typical of Zanzibar issues, they seldom appear on the auction market and, in most cases, surface only once.

(Pick 1, BNB 101), in PMG holder 20 Very Fine, rust, classic and very low serial number rarity!

Estimate
$10,000 to $15,000

Starting price
$7000