United Nations Paper Money, 1946-56

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The notes shown above were issued by various Displaced Persons (DP) Camps and other UN related organizations. Germany had a large population of displaced persons from Lithuania, hence the group above were printed bilingually in Lithuanian and English. These were used at the UNRRA camp in Scheinfeld, Germany.

The United Nations International Refugee Organization notes  were used in Austria at during the 1946 - 52 period. While rare these notes do come on the market periodically. As of December 7, 2005 there is a set is currently available from Beate Rauch at APC Paper Collectibles, one of the dealers we have listed under "Our Favourite Paper Money Links" page.

The UNEF group of UN related items are chits, issued in booklet form containing a total value of 1£, 2£ or 5£ Egyptian "that were used during the Suez Crisis of 1956 probably by British and French Forces.  Although I can't tell you exactly how they were used, I would guess that they were used in a similar manner to which all chits were used.  In this case there was probably some facility such as our post exchange or the British NAAFI where the troops could buy small personal items or purchase a drink (in this case, a cup of tea) or a snack" reports numismatist Larry Smulczenski.
 

Larry goes on to say "the question about colors puzzles me. I have seen a set of these but did not realize there were multiple colors. The crisis was short lived so I would doubt that there were reprints of this issue. I found a second reference to this booklet in MPCgram number 1380. Could a group of these have hit the market recently? By recently, I mean during the last year or so. Neil Shafer pictured a similar booklet in the December 2004 issue of Banknote Reporter.  The serial number of his book was E184426 which is only five numbers away from two of the chits you pictured on your website. Makes you want to think that a group of remainders have been found and are being sold. I don't know the number of the book that was mentioned in the gram but I will try to find out.  Notice also that the chits you show have a "B" and a "E" prefix. I originally thought that the letters indicated two booklets of different values that the chits came from.  Neil Shafer article booklet has a value of one pound and has a E prefix.  Shafer has a 25 PT (Piastre) chit which has a "B" prefix serial number.  Since there are at least four and possibly five chits per strip in the booklet, and 100 Piastre per pound, we couldn't have anything but one strip of 25 PT chit in a one pound booklet.  So the 25 PT chits had to come out of a 2 or 5 pound booklet.  That's what I think the "B" indicated and for some reason Globe (the printer) printed the values on different colors of paper.  Why, I don't know.  Then of course I could be all wrong, and maybe the prefixes were to distinguish who the booklets were given to, i.e. "B" to British and "E" to French. 

 I am not sure that those chits were watermarked but believe that is a sort of background design on the paper that was used as a security device.  Notice that it says Globe which is the printer Globe Ticket Company.  This is the type of  security paper that checks usually were printed on.

We appreciate receiving any additional scans or info from collectors or visitors.