I love this picture so much, from 1967-1970, dreams were dashed, hopes lost and lives forever changed, but Biafra lives forever. The difference between the privileged and the under-privileged is lost or confined to a part of the mind that refuses to divulge such scenes and events that make such distinction stark, lest they swindle faint hearts into unnecessary jollity. In the course of time, lifes everyday activities such as drinking tap-water, eating thrice or twice in a day, free movement, using perfumed soap in bathing became lost in the memory of a time forgone. Besides, during the war, when everybody seemed to be living on rented life and death was loitering everywhere, Biafrans were able to produce real Biafran currency of the highest quality. Even duo each of the notes issue have a degree of common design on their front, each denomination is distinct in its layout. The common features are the rising sun, the palm tree, the names of the Republic and the Bank, a white disc to the right of the note, and patterns imitating engine work surrounding the notes. The notes are printed on a non-fluorescing paper embedded with red and blue fibres. The use of this paper is the dominant security feature of the issue, however there is a very interesting attempt to use an early form of ‘micro printing’ on all notes of this series. The front of each note has a coloured pattern (around the outside of the central design) which contains very small print repeating the words ‘Bank of Biafra’ followed by the denomination of the note e.g. the 5-shilling note repeats ‘Bank of Biafra Five Shillings’. The small print appears as continuous lines, however the print is made less easy to detect by being overlaid with a pattern of lines the pattern being different on each denomination. No matter in what form the notes are found, the notes of Biafra offer an interesting piece of history, a piece of African history, and a piece of bank note history. So next time you come across one of these notes, don’t reject them out of hand, collecting bank notes doesn’t have to revolve around scarce notes, and this series proves that cheap notes can be just as intriguing as their expensive counterparts. Thanks!
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 23:13:43 +0000
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