Dour queen, hidden king, and no bananas

I just had to show you these three last banknotes. Laurie picked them up around the same time, same place, but these were either pre-war, or produced by the pre-war governments.

A couple of differences stand out: first, these notes do not carry the Japanese lettering that the banana dollars do, no matter what language they were printed in.


And second, they do have serial numbers.

The dour queen, Queen Willhemina of the Netherlands, on a one rupee note for the Dutch East Indies. And a bit of a tongue-twister in two long words, "Nederlandsch-indische gouvernementsgulden".

King George IV of England, on a Malayan 10-cent note. In English and, I'm guessing, Malay. An oddity about this bill is that the backside is completely blank.


And King George, again, on an Indian one rupee note. Look at this one closely.


Frontside, I think.


And backside. I was intrigued by the white area, framed so nicely with flowers and trim, but blank, front and back. I held the bill up to the light, and there was George!


He's sandwiched in the centre of the paper, invisible except this way. (To photograph him, I propped the bill against my desk lamp, with a tissue behind to soften the glare.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back to the fruit bills; I think the $1 bill has a fig tree and a coconut palm, the $5 bill shows coconuts and papaya, and the $10 has bananas and breadfruit flanked on either side by coconuts. I could be wrong; I am open to suggestions.