Description and research notes
Commercial draft issued in Cairo on 10 November 1927 by the well-known Levantine merchant house Chahine & Sbath for 250 piastres. Printed by B. Arnaud (Lyon–Paris–Le Caire), the draft features crisp bilingual French–Arabic monetary text and a refined ornamental frame typical of French Mediterranean security printing of the 1920s.
What elevates this document is its banking endorsement: the reverse bears the boxed violet handstamp of BANQUE D’ORIENT — LE CAIRE with manuscript acceptance, confirming its formal passage through the Greek–French bank’s Cairo branch. Banque d’Orient acted as a key financial intermediary for Greek, Syrian, and Armenian trading networks in Egypt, making endorsed drafts from this institution particularly desirable.
The manuscript entries are complete, including order, drawee, date, and settlement notation. The document is free of reductions, punch cancellations, or fiscal damage. Very few Banque d’Orient–endorsed drafts survive, and even fewer originate from merchant houses as prominent as Chahine & Sbath. This is a cornerstone artifact of Egypt’s interwar commercial finance.