Italian East African lira

The lira AOI was a special banknote circulating in Italian East Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana, or AOI) between 1938 and 1941.

When Fascist Italy imposed the Italian lira in Ethiopia in 1936, it declared by law a rate of 3 lire = 1 thaler: it was no more than an after-war clausola that a winning nation had imposed to a defeated country, considering that the thaler was a silver coin with a natural value 28 times higher than the lira. If Ethiopians were obliged to change their copper money and banknotes for their everyday life, they began to hide their silver coins considering that they could save their value simply funding the metal. The Italian government declared illegal this usage, but in 1938 it offered new special banknotes issued "lira AOI" at a better rate of 4.5 lire = 1 thaler for citizens who would accept to give their silver coins to the Bank of Italy.

Very few people accepted, and in 1939 it was offered a second possibility at a rate 5 lire = 1 thaler. In Italian Somaliland, the lira was already circulating. In Ethiopia, the lira replaced the Ethiopian thaler (issued by the Bank of Ethiopia) whilst in Eritrea it replaced the Eritrean tallero, a silver coin minted in Italy. It also briefly replaced the East African shilling in British Somaliland under Italia occupation between 1940 and 1941, when the lira AOI was offered at a rate 13 lire = 1 thaler.

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