MicroFactzzz#0107 · 🏛️ History Gone Off the Rails
During a Siege in Africa, a Town Ran Out of Cash — So It Printed Its Own Currency from Stamps
During the Siege of Mafeking in the Second Boer War, a cut-off British garrison printed its own banknotes and stamps to keep the town’s economy running.
From 1899 to 1900, during the Second Boer War, the town of Mafeking in South Africa endured over 200 days under Boer siege, cut off from regular supplies and standard cash.
The garrison commander, Colonel Robert Baden-Powell, later the founder of the Scouting movement, ordered the printing of local banknotes and postage stamps bearing his own likeness and those of other defenders, to keep money circulating in the town.
Thanks to this improvised currency, residents could still buy food and pay for services inside the besieged town, even though it formally had no backing beyond local trust.
After the siege ended, some of these banknotes and stamps found their way into collectors’ hands and remain sought-after items among numismatists today, as a unique trace of improvised wartime economics.
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Krulicza Nora
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