Wednesday World Coins & Currency - Burma (British Colony)

Currency Stats:

Burma (British Colony) 5 Rupees 1938-39
Overprint "Rangoon" on Reverse **RARE**

Pick# 4

G-F
$1.00 - 5.00 (Without Overprint)
Honest Appraisal - $20.00

Since I've shown a lot of coins in the past and on top of that, deleted some of my former paper money posts, I think I will continue on with posting some more notes to keep you guys interested.  This one also came from the dealers dump bin, and it also caught my eye.  For a whopping 50 cents, it was a steal in my mind.  First off, British Colonial notes from Burma are hard to come by, you will usually find them online at a premium (but in much better condition) but you won't see many of them.  This one was particularly special given that it has an overprint on the reverse of the note with "Rangoon" stamped on it.  I suspect that this note was in use for the British Armed Forces during WWII and the overprint "Rangoon" specified that it was only for use in that area to prevent Japanese control of the black market.  This was typical practice at the time, if any of you have a U.S. note with a Hawaii overprint on it, the reason that it was printed in a different color and had the overprint was to control the black market in case of a Japanese invasion and so that congress could make the note completely worthless and easily distinguishable if an invasion had occurred.  Likely the same circumstances for this note.  It's in really bad shape unfortunately, but even notes in terrible condition can have some value, especially those that are rare and harder to find, obviously.  

So this note was actually produced and backed by the Bank of India, in fact, most of Burma was governed from India at the time and Rangoon only had some basic offices.  The front of the note has a portrait of King George VI and a peacock at center with the entire face of the note in English.  The reverse of the note had a picture of elephants working in the forest, as they still do today.  The reverse also has traditional Burmese script and English on the back showing the value in both of the respective languages and the overprint "Rangoon".  

As I stated in the previous post, I used my rule of thumb to find this note and although it may or may not be worth too much, I still find it to be rare and a pretty neat find!

Enjoy!