Last updated: September 2026

What currency did Biafra use?

Biafra used the Biafran pound of 20 shillings, issued by the Bank of Biafra from January 1968. For the first eight months of the republic's existence it used no money of its own at all. The Eastern Region of Nigeria declared independence as the Republic of Biafra on 30 May 1967, and the decree that created its central bank kept Nigerian notes and coins in circulation until further notice.

That is the detail most write-ups get wrong. The first Biafran notes are usually described as appearing straight after the declaration of independence, but the Bank of Biafra's own founding decree adopted the existing currency, and the changeover came only in January 1968 (Peter Symes, "The Bank Notes of Biafra", first published in the International Bank Note Society Journal, Volume 36 No. 4, 1997, revised 2003). Standard catalogs date the first issue to 1967 and the second to 1968. Those are series dates rather than release dates, which is why the two sets of dates do not line up.

What was the Bank of Biafra?

The Bank of Biafra was the republic's central bank, created under Decree No. 3 of 1967, known as the Bank of Biafra Decree. The decree gave it all central banking functions, including the administration of foreign exchange and the management of the public debt, and placed it under a board of a Governor and not fewer than four Directors. Its central office was at Enugu.

Two more provisions of that decree matter to collectors. The first kept Nigerian currency in circulation until the Military Governor said otherwise. The second instructed the bank to maintain the existing parity of the Nigerian pound, and the Biafran pound was denominated in shillings and pounds rather than in a new unit with a new name. A companion Banking Decree, No. 4 of 1967, adapted Nigeria's existing banking legislation for the new republic (Symes, IBNS Journal).

Signatures on the notes are an open question. Every note is signed by a Governor and a Director; Symes reads the Governor's signature as Sylvester U. Uqoh and records that the Directors who countersigned remain unidentified.

Which Biafran banknotes were issued?

There were two issues. The first, in January 1968, ran to only two denominations, 5 shillings and 1 pound, because there was no time to prepare more. The second, announced in February 1969, added the 10 shillings, the 5 pounds and the 10 pounds and upgraded the printing. That is the whole series: seven catalog numbers.

The public dates come from the republic's own announcements. On 27 January 1968 the new currency was declared, with the notes to reach the public on 29 January; Symes records one source giving 10 January instead, and flags the discrepancy rather than resolving it. The second issue is dated by an announcement of 10 February 1969 listing the full range of £10, £5, £1, 10 shillings and 5 shillings. Circulation ended in January 1970, when Biafra rejoined Nigeria.

What is on a Biafran banknote?

The front of every Biafran note carries a rising sun behind a palm tree, the value in a white disc, and engine-turned patterns imitating intaglio lathe work. The backs are where the denominations separate: four girls, a coat of arms, a group of buildings, a woman weaving and a wood carver, one scene each.

The rising sun was the republic's dominant emblem, taken from a coat of arms in which two leopards support a shield divided red, black and green with three linked manillas across it. A manilla is an old West African copper bracelet money that circulated in this region for centuries and was demonetized in the 1940s; it frames the value on the backs of both 5 shilling notes and on the 10 shillings. The palm tree carried its own echo, because a single palm had been the dominant motif on the West African Currency Board notes that circulated here from 1916 to 1951 (Symes, IBNS Journal).

Denomination by denomination

• 5 shillings, first issue (P-1). Blue on a lilac underprint, with the rising sun printed in a color that varies from orange to yellow between examples. Back: brown on light blue, four girls at right (PMG).
• 1 pound, first issue (P-2). Blue and orange. Back: the coat of arms at right, with a ceremonial spear, the alo, behind the value disc (PMG).
• 5 shillings, second issue (P-3). Blue on green and orange, with the smaller rising sun at top left center. Back: the four girls again (PMG).
• 10 shillings (P-4). Dark green on blue and orange. Back: buildings at right, which Symes identifies as an oil refinery (PMG).
• 1 pound, second issue (P-5). Dark brown on green, brown and orange. Back: the coat of arms at right, this time without the spear (PMG).
• 5 pounds (P-6). Purple on green and orange. Back: the coat of arms at left over the shaft of the spear, and a woman weaving at a hand loom (PMG).
• 10 pounds (P-7). Black on blue, brown and orange. Back: the coat of arms at left and a male carver at left center (PMG).

The first issue has one more oddity worth knowing about. A dotted line runs down the right side of the front and looks at first like a Morse-code security thread, but the marks are simply printed on the surface. It is an imitation of a security feature rather than a security feature, which tells you a great deal about the conditions the notes were made under. Our guide to banknote security features covers what genuine threads, fibers and watermarks actually do, and emergency money and notgeld puts Biafra alongside the other paper issued in a hurry.

Who printed the Biafran pound?

Nobody knows for certain. Neither issue carries a printer's imprint, and no printer has ever been confirmed for either series. The leading published suggestion, from Yasha Beresiner and Colin Narbeth's The Story of Paper Money (1973), is that the notes were produced in Portugal and Switzerland.

Symes sets out the circumstantial case and is careful to label it conjecture. Biafra's postage stamps were printed by the Portuguese State Security Printers in Lisbon, and the flights carrying Biafran currency operated out of Lisbon, which points to Portugal for the first series. From January 1968 a Geneva public relations firm handled the republic's overseas press work and one of its financial advisers was based in Switzerland, which points to Switzerland for the second. Treat any listing that states a printer as fact with caution.

What are Biafran banknotes worth?

Most Biafran notes are among the most affordable complete country sets in world paper money, with catalog values in Uncirculated 60 running from under $2 to $100. The 1967 1 pound is the most valuable type and the 1968 1 pound the least. The figures below are catalog values in US dollars from the PMG World Paper Money Price Guide, read in September 2026.

Read the a and b rows carefully, because the remainders do not behave the way collectors expect. On the 5 shillings and the 1 pound, the remainder without serial numbers carries a higher catalog value than the issued note: $40 against $17.50, and $20 against $1.50. On the 5 pounds and the 10 pounds the relationship reverses, and the remainder is listed well below the issued note. Remainders exist only for the second series, and the 10 shilling remainder has not been positively recorded, so a 10 shilling offered without serial numbers deserves a close look.

Because almost everything here is inexpensive, grade is where the money goes: high-grade certified examples of the 1967 1 pound and the 10 pound note are the ones that hold a premium. Our guide to what determines a banknote's value explains the mechanics.

Why are Biafran banknotes so easy to find?

Because a large share of both issues never reached Biafra, and the undelivered stock went to collectors instead. Symes estimates the print runs from serial-number prefixes at roughly 60 million notes for the first issue and 138 million for the second, close to 200 million pieces in all, in a republic whose population was around 14 million.

His estimates, denomination by denomination, are 20 million 5 shilling notes and 40 million 1 pound notes for the first series, and for the second series 40 million 5 shillings, 19 million 10 shillings, 70 million 1 pound, 6 million 5 pounds and 3 million 10 pounds. The method is reconstruction rather than a printer's record: the second-series serial numbers use a two-letter prefix followed by seven digits, and because the first digit is always a zero, each prefix covers one million notes rather than ten million. Our explainer on banknote serial numbers covers how prefixes work.

The notes that never arrived were sold to collectors, and in large enough numbers to flood the market. Symes records that the selling began in September 1968, when agents of the Biafran government in Geneva offered complete sets of the second series to collectors at £20 10s a set, five months before those notes were announced at home, which shows the second series was printed well ahead of its February 1969 introduction. After January 1970 the remaining stock followed, and that is why a series printed for a country of 14 million people is still one of the cheapest complete national collections in the hobby.

Scarcity here is inverted. Notes that actually circulated in Biafra and came back worn are seen less often than the crisp Uncirculated pieces that sat in a European warehouse, the opposite of how most modern series behave.

How do you start collecting Biafran banknotes?

Start with the complete type set. Seven Pick numbers, all of them affordable in high grade, and you can own every note a country ever issued. That is an unusual thing to be able to say, and it makes Biafra one of the best first countries for a new world-paper-money collector.

• Buy Uncirculated. Because the undelivered stock survives in quantity, there is rarely a reason to settle for a circulated example of the second issue. A crisp note costs a few dollars more and shows the designs as they were printed. Our banknote grading guide walks the 1 to 70 scale.
• Decide whether you want remainders. The notes without serial numbers are a distinct collecting sub-theme and are getting harder to find. Check the top right and bottom left of the front, where the serial numbers sit when they are present.
• Consider certification for the two key notes. The 1967 1 pound and the 10 pounds are where a PMG or PCGS holder is worth the fee, because both services authenticate every note before grading it on the 1 to 70 scale and seal it in a tamper-evident holder (Paper Money Guaranty). See graded versus raw banknotes for when it pays.

For the catalog conventions behind the P numbers used throughout this page, see our guide to Pick numbers. The International Bank Note Society published the research this page draws on, and its journal remains the place to look for African issues of this period. For the wider context, a survey of unrecognized states and their money in CoinWeek covers Biafra alongside Katanga and Rhodesia, and our Rhodesian banknotes hub takes up that second story in full.

Where can you buy Biafran banknotes?

Buy from a dealer that states the Pick number, the issue and whether the note carries serial numbers, because those three details set the price. Planet Banknote lists world paper money by country rather than quoting a fixed market price, since inventory and grades change. Browse the banknotes by country index to see what is currently available.

If this is a first world banknote purchase, our guide to buying world banknotes safely covers what to check, how to collect world banknotes covers the first decisions, and how to store banknotes explains how to keep an Uncirculated note Uncirculated.

Planet Banknote is a family-owned dealership in Sarasota, Florida, founded in 2021. Every note is sourced direct from mints, central banks, and authorized distributors, inspected through our Planet Banknote Verified process, and ships with a free Certificate of Authenticity. US orders ship free via USPS Priority, and every order includes a free bonus gift.