Watch List notes:

Benki Kuu ya Tanzania, proof 1000 shilingi note, 1997, serial number BA1234567, green, brown, and red, two elephants, at lower left, coat of arms at centre, giraffe head at right, reverse, factory buildings, at right ancient carved door to people's bank of Zanzibar, (Pick 31p, TBB B130p), in PMG holder 35 Choice Very Fine, PROOF notes like this one are the real rarities, these are hand made on single note presses but using all the correct paper and inks and usually only 4 or 5 are made. These are made for the final approval by the customer before commercial volume production starts on the full size printing presses and are usually produced by the million. Some of these production notes are held back for specimens and usually given the serial number 00000000 (or "numbered in nullahs" to give the technical term). These are usually cancelled in some way, usually with the overprint SPECIMEN. However De La Rue generally number their proofs 1234567 like this one. At upper right you can also see a handwritten number, in this case 5918/1. Meaning that this was the first proof of contract number 5918. This is also interesting in that if you look up in the reference books they will say that this note was printed by G&D but this was actually a secret sub-contract to De La Rue, hence the De La Rue PROOF note, very fine.

Estimate: £400 - £600