Ethiopia, Haile Selassie I, a plated maquette for the obv. of the coinages of EE 1936 [1944], unsigned [by J.R. Sinnock], draped bust left, date below, 180mm (Gill –). Very fine and much as made, extremely rare £400-£500

Haile Selassie, who had fled Ethiopia in 1936 with the onset of Italian fascist rule, returned to Addis Ababa in April 1941 following liberation of his country by British forces. The currency situation remained dire, however, with locals favouring Maria Theresa dollars over coins of the East African Currency Board and even Indian rupees. The new State Bank of Ethiopia, established in August 1942, expressed its financial results in Maria Theresa dollars and the government prohibited exports of these coins, worth, as they were, a third more than East African currency. In June 1943 Yilma Deressa, Ethiopia’s Vice Minister of Finance, met his counterparts in the US and an agreement was signed in August 1943. This led in turn to a formal order for minting of newly-designed Ethiopian coins, in five denominations, engraved by John Sinnock and Gilroy Roberts, respectively Chief Engraver and Chief Sculptor at the Philadelphia mint, and made in June 1944. The new money was officially inaugurated on 23 July 1945, Haile Selassie’s birthday