For a decade that is largely forgotten in the history of Palestinian currency, the Egyptian pound was the official money of Mandatory Palestine. When British forces entered Jerusalem in December 1917 and the Ottoman financial system collapsed overnight, Britain turned to its Egyptian administration for a rapid solution — introducing Egyptian currency as the legal tender of the new Mandatory territory.
Why Egypt?
The choice of the Egyptian pound was entirely practical. Egypt had been under British administration since 1882 and already operated a stable, sterling-linked currency system. Introducing Egyptian notes and coins to Palestine required no new infrastructure, no new printing contracts and no new legislation — it was the fastest path to economic stability in a territory emerging from four centuries of Ottoman rule and the chaos of the First World War.
A Decade of Egyptian Currency in Palestinian Markets
From 1917 to 1927, Egyptian banknotes passed through the hands of Palestinian merchants in the markets of Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa and Nablus. The Egyptian pound — known in Arabic as الجنيه المصري (al-junaih al-masri) — was pegged to sterling at one pound to one pound, providing the price stability the economy desperately needed. Palestinian farmers, tradespeople and families conducted their daily commerce in a currency that bore no reference to Palestine whatsoever — a currency of convenience in a land whose own identity was being actively debated by the great powers.
The Transition to the Palestine Pound
The creation of the Palestine Currency Board in 1927 and the introduction of the Palestine Pound brought the Egyptian chapter to a close. Egyptian notes were gradually withdrawn from circulation and exchanged at par — one Egypt pound for one Palestine pound. By the early 1930s Egyptian currency had largely disappeared from Palestinian commerce, replaced by the distinctively designed Palestine Pound that would serve as the territory’s currency until 1948.
The Collection
The collection includes rare examples of Egyptian pound banknotes that circulated in Palestine during this transitional decade — tangible evidence of a chapter in Palestinian economic history that few history books record. Each note is a quiet witness to a period of profound uncertainty and change in the life of Palestine and its people.
The most intimate note in the collection — a Five Piastres Egyptian Government Currency Note from 1918, signed by Yusuf Wahba, Egypt’s Minister of Finance. Unlike the larger National Bank of Egypt notes, this was issued directly by the Egyptian Government rather than the bank, part of a wartime emergency currency series introduced to keep small transactions moving across Egypt and Mandatory Palestine. The green and purple note depicts a camel caravan crossing open desert — a scene that would have resonated equally in Cairo or in the markets of Jaffa. Printed by Bradbury, Wilkinson & Co. of London, the same firm that printed banknotes for the Ottoman Empire and would later print the Palestine Currency Board notes that replaced it.
Dated just days after British forces were consolidating their control over Palestine, this 50 Piastres note carries one of the most recognisable symbols of Egypt — the Great Sphinx of Giza — at the centre of its design, with a mosque minaret rising to the left. The Sphinx had appeared on National Bank of Egypt notes since the very first issue in 1899, a conscious choice to anchor Egyptian currency in the country’s ancient identity at the very moment Britain was remaking the region. One hundred piastres equalled one Egyptian pound, making this a note of moderate everyday value — the kind exchanged across shop counters, in souks and at market stalls across Palestinian towns and villages throughout the transitional decade.
The £1 note was the workhorse of daily Palestinian commerce during the transitional decade. This beautifully preserved 1924 example carries what became one of the most distinctive designs in the entire National Bank of Egypt series — a large camel and rider in the central vignette, the animal’s head turned toward the viewer, flanked by Pharaonic portrait figures and rich red guilloche patterning. The camel had featured on Egyptian currency since the first 1899 issue, a deliberate symbol of the ancient caravan routes that had connected Egypt, Palestine and the wider Arab world for millennia. That same camel image was now passing through Palestinian hands — a quiet visual thread linking two peoples under the same British administration.
This striking £5 note was issued just three years before the Egyptian pound was replaced in Palestine by the Palestine Currency Board notes. The design is anchored by the grand neoclassical facade of the National Bank of Egypt’s own headquarters in Cairo — a building that was, at the time of issue, one of the most imposing financial institutions in the Middle East. Pharaonic sphinxes flank the title banner at the top of the note, the bank asserting its identity at the intersection of ancient Egypt and modern finance. Classified by PMG as “Egypt / Ottoman Administration,” reflecting the complex layering of authority that still characterised the region in 1924. Signed by Governor Hornsby.
An extraordinary rarity — a Specimen note from the first weeks of Britain’s military administration of Palestine. Dated 7th April 1917, this £10 note carries the serial number X/10 000001, the very first of its print series. The central vignette shows a scene from Old Cairo: the street and mosque of Sultan Qaytbay, the 15th-century Mamluk ruler whose funerary complex in Cairo’s Northern Cemetery is considered one of the finest examples of Mamluk architecture ever built. That a scene of medieval Islamic Cairo should serve as the face of currency circulating in medieval Islamic Palestine speaks to the strange coherence — and the deep strangeness — of Britain’s dual administration of these two Arab lands. The pencilled notation in the upper margin — “073375 — 31.3.17” — is a printer’s reference from Bradbury, Wilkinson & Co., marking this as an archival record of the very note type that would circulate in Palestine’s markets.
The crown of the collection — a magnificent £50 note issued two years after British forces entered Palestine. The central vignette depicts a group of domed tombs and minarets rising from the Cairo landscape, with a camel caravan moving across the foreground — a scene drawn from the Mameluke tomb complexes of Cairo’s historic City of the Dead, one of the great monuments of Islamic architecture. At £50, this was a note of exceptional value, the equivalent of months of wages for most Palestinian workers in 1919, yet it was the official currency of the land. The note was signed by Sir Frederick Rowlatt, Governor of the National Bank of Egypt from 1902 to 1924 — the single figure whose signature appeared across the entire transitional period, on Egyptian notes that circulated from Cairo to Jerusalem, from Alexandria to Jaffa.
These six notes represent a decade of Palestinian monetary life that has been almost entirely forgotten. No Palestinian currency board, no distinct Palestinian notes — just Egyptian pounds passing through Palestinian hands, in Palestinian markets, in a land being remade by forces far beyond its borders. Each note in this collection is a quiet witness to that forgotten chapter.