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 The Modern Thai Banknote Issuance Period

          The issuance of Thai banknote kept the same way of India's banknote issuance which was based on the British Currency Acts. In 1900, Mr.W.J.F. Williamson, British officer, Ministry of finance of India, was called to work this project. The Siamese Currency Act was promulagated in 1902 and then ordered the British printing company to print the first series of banknotes in two years later.

1st Series	2nd Series	3rd Series	4th Series
5th Series	6th Series	7th Series	8th Series
9th Series	10th Series	11th Series	12th Series
13th Series	14th Series	15th Series

          Thai banknote are always change in design by series. The first bunch of Thai banknotes were printed from Messrs Thomas de la Rue & Company Limited in England. In 1939, Bank of Thailand (BOT) was established and took over the responsibilities in monetary policy and currency control. In WWII, due to the Thai Government allied itself to with Japan, the British printing company could not supply banknotes to the Axis, so Thai government requested the Japan government to print banknotes in 5th series. Anyway the banknote transportations always were attacked by the Allied, Thai government assigned The Royal Thai Survey Department (RTSD) to print banknotes by using local raw materials. Because of the remained high demand of banknotes, BOT also commissioned the Naval Hydrographic Department (NHD) to carry out additional printing.

          Before the war ended, the Allies heavily attacked all Axis transports and facilities not except RTSD and NHD, the Thai government decided to command governmental and private printing press to print banknotes by strictly control.

          After the war, the banknote shortage problem still continued due to the severe inflation. The government could not order Thomas de la Rue that had been damaged from the war, the Thai government asked for the US government bureau of printing for the 8th series.  Thailand anyway still suffered from banknote shortage, the government have to surcharge overprint some cancelled banknotes until the new notes from US were delivered.

          Thai government perceived the necessity of security and stability in banknote printing so BOT formed a committee and established the Note Printing Works in 1969 and start printing the 11th series until nowaday.

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