Monday, September 24, 2012

Odd Banknotes - 06 Thailand

Back to my beloved country, and the amazing banknotes that have been released so far.

On September 9, 2002, the Bank of Thailand celebrated it's centennial.
A good, (but for Thai not a mandatory) reason to celebrate.
Since it's the anniversary of the Bank of Thailand (BOT), the best way to celebrate is with a special banknote.

100 years earlier, the first Thai banknotes were released unders the auspices of King Rama V.
He turns up on many commemorative issues (stamps, coins and banknotes) as he was ruling 100 years ago of course.

The banknote is a copy of the first banknote:

100 tickal note 1919 (original - not in my collection)

commemorative note front side
1. face value of the original note : 100 Ticals (= 100 Baht)
In English : one hundred Ticals ; in Thai : roi Baht (100 Baht)
Thailand's 1st series of banknotes were issued in 1902. These notes, by Thomas de la Rue, were printed only on one side and are known as the Uniface series. There were 7 denominations in all - 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 and 1000 Ticals.
At that time : 1 Tical = 4 Salung = 16 Sik = 32 Sio = 64 Atts = 128 Solot
In 1909, 1 Baht (Tical) became 100 satang.

2. there is Siamese wrinting on the note (middle) as well as Chinese (left) and Jawi (right)

3. signature 1 (on the copy of the original note)
signature 1 (TH) - as on the original note
The back of the original banknote (1902) was left unprinted.
On the commemorative note, we find the images of their Majesties King Phumibol Adulyadej and King Chulalongkorn (King Rama V) in their regal attire, as the Thai banknotes was issued for the first time during the reign of King Rama V.


back side of the commemorative note
Catalogue (Krause) mention 2 types of signatures on this note :

signature 74 (TH)

signature 75 (TH)
However, according to my information, this is an error and there is no such banknote with signature 75.
9,999,999 copies were made from this commemorative banknote.
The note is presented in a folder with the royal intitials and the information in the folder is only in Thai language.


folder containing a 100 baht commemorative note

back side of the folder - the king talking to his people
and there's more ...

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