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THE FIRST PAPER MONEY OF SERBIA
It is well known that one of the essential characteristics of sovereignity of a country is its own money. Bearing this in mind, and at the proposal of the National Assembly, Duke Mihailo rendered on March 15, 1868 the "supreme ruling" about the issuing of Serbian currency. Thus, 125 years ago, Serbia got its first coins - the so called "tax money". During Duke Mihailo's reign the finance minister was Kosta Cukic (1826-1879). His successor Cedomilj Mijatovic (1842-1932), during the reign of king Milan Obrenovic, was responsible for the introduction of the decimal system of measures and weights, and for the the introduction of the dinars as the national currency. The basic monetary unit , the dinar, was struck in silver, and put into circulation in 1875. The name "dinar" originates from the Roman silver coin denarius. It is little known that the first Serbian money called dinar was coined in the territory of Medieval Serbia back in the 13th and 14th centuries during the Nemanjic dynasty. The Law on Serbian Silver Currency, passed on November 30, 1873, introduced the Dinar as the basic unit of Serbian silver currency. Its value was 100 paras, and its finenes. Weight and dimensions were identical to those of the Franc in the Latin Union member countries, which guaranteed convertibility at par value. It is belived that the drawing for the first Serbian paper dinar was made by Serbian famous painter and poet Djura Jaksic. The first series of bank notes with the date of issue of July 1, 1876, printed in denominations of one, five ten, fifty and hunderd dinar, falls into the category of of government bank notes. This is evident from the text on the bank note:"... issued on the grounds of the legal decision of 19 January 1876", and the signature J. Zivadinovic - in the name of the Main State Treasury. A unique curiosity is linked with bank notes of this issue. Namely, notes of this series were often found halved, this indicationg that the left and the right halves of the note were used in circulation, each as one half of the nominal value of the whole bank note. Upon establishment of the issuing bank in Serbia, which started operating on 2nd July 1884 under the name of PRIVILEGED NATIONAL BANK OF THE KINGDOM OF SERBIA, the first bank notes were issued. The National Bank of Belgium assisted the young Serbian state in organizing the banking activity (technical assistance was provided by the head of the book-keeping department of the Bank, Charles Bauchman, from 1883-1885), and gave to the privileged National Bank of the Kingdom of Serbia its two reserve bank notes of 50 and 100 francs. These two notes, called "the Belgians" by ordinary people, first issued in 1884, were remodelled in Belgrade into denominations of 50 and 100 dinars in gold with the signature of Governor Aleksa Spasic and member of the managemet Djordje Vajfert. The bank notes "in gold" of 100 dinars (with dates of issue: July the 2nd 1884) and 50 dinars (1st of February 1885), together with the former series of government money (which was not issued) are today the rarest and the most valuable items of the national collections, and are rarely offered on the notaphily collectors market. |