Collection PL

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Fiji’s paper currency traces the layered history of British colonial administration in the Pacific. Before the Second World War, the islands relied on sterling shipments printed by London firms such as Thomas De La Rue & Company and on the wider reserve note network of New Zealand. When Japanese expansion across the Pacific disrupted those routes in 1942, the British authorities in Suva were forced to improvise.

Their solution was pragmatic and urgent: to overprint existing New Zealand Reserve Bank £1 notes with bold black text reading “GOVERNMENT OF FIJI.” These modified notes entered circulation as legal tender for the colony and its military garrisons. Though the host note retained its New Zealand design and crowned watermark, the overprint transformed it into Fiji’s de facto wartime currency. Each was hand-inspected, numbered, and released through local treasuries as shipping shortages made replacement impossible.

The surviving 1942 Fiji £1 (Pick 45c) encapsulates the improvisation of empire under stress: a New Zealand note printed by De La Rue, overprinted in Fiji, circulated under British authority, and withdrawn after the war when standard production resumed. Its paper bears the wear of a tropical economy at war—sun, humidity, and constant exchange—but its existence documents one of the rarest and most historically charged emergency issues of the Pacific theatre.

The Fiji section of this collection begins with that single note: a bridge between London’s print rooms, New Zealand’s reserve system, and the wartime Pacific outpost that relied on both. Further additions will follow the lineage through post-war crown issues and the early independence series of 1970.

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Fiji 1942 one pound wartime overprint on New Zealand Reserve Bank £1 note showing Government of Fiji overprint and red FI/O serial number

Fiji 1942 — 1 Pound Government of Fiji Overprint on New Zealand £1 (Pick 45c)

This one pound note issued for Fiji in 1942 was created by overprinting an existing Reserve Bank of New Zealand £1 note originally dated 1 August 1934. The base note was printed by Thomas De La Rue & Company in London for circulation in New Zealand, but during the Second World War it was adapted for emergency use within the British colony of Fiji. In early 1942 Japanese military expansion across the Pacific severely disrupted supply lines throughout the British colonial network. ... Read more →

FijiIssued Note (Overprint on Foreign Base)19421 PoundPMG 20 Very Fine Overprinted IssueForeign Base NoteBlack OverprintWartime Emergency CurrencyWorld War II Currency1 PoundGovernment of FijiBritish Colonial AdministrationPacific Wartime EconomyColonial Monetary PolicyReserve Bank of New Zealand Base NoteKiwi VignetteMaori King Tawhiao PortraitCommonwealth Currency AdaptationThomas De La RueTDLRSecurity PrintingFiji1942Pick 45cNew Zealand Pick 155PMG 20Very FineMuseum Grade
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