E£50 — Fifty Pounds
The artwork
Front: The whole right-hand two-thirds is given to Al-Azhar in Cairo — the mosque and university founded under the Fatimids — drawn from the courtyard, with two of its slender minarets rising above the crenellated arcade and the ribbed dome behind. To the left, Arabic script for the Central Bank of Egypt and "fifty piastres", the Governor's signature above his title, and the serial in Arabic-Indic numerals with the ٥٠/٤ prefix.
Back: A pharaonic statue in three-quarter view, arms crossed over the chest holding crook and flail, wearing the nemes headcloth and a broad beaded collar. Behind it run bands of pink, grey and ochre, with a bundled papyrus column at the shoulder. "Central Bank of Egypt / FIFTY PIASTRES" in English at the top left, a boxed 50 opposite, and a cartouche set into a sweeping stylised flourish at the right.
In circulation
One of the small-value notes the Central Bank kept in constant reprint from the mid-1980s onwards, handled until it fell apart — as this one nearly has. A 50-piastre coin arrived in the 2000s and gradually took the work over, and the little notes were left to wear out of circulation rather than be recalled.
Details
- IssuerCentral Bank of Egypt — البنك المركزي المصري
- CurrencyPound (E£)
- DenominationFifty Pounds
- Collectedon the Egypt journeys, 1992–1993
- Series50 piastres, Al-Azhar Mosque type
- SignatureGovernor of the Central Bank (المحافظ)
- SecuritySerial number in Arabic-Indic numerals, printed twice, with fractional prefix