Name this currency note

Factual Questions
1

A friend of mine was recently traveling through the international airport in Kathmandu and was approached by a Nepali policeman who askedg her if she could identify the origin of a note they had been given in payment by someone at the airport. I guess he approached my friend because she was a foreigner and might know the currencies of other countries. The policeman had no idea where it was from or what it was worth.

My friend got a quick look at it and didn’t recognize it either. As she described it to me, it was about the same hight as a US dollar, but not as long, was slightly red in color, and the numbers in all 4 corners (both sides) were not in a text she recognized. In other words, not in Arabic numerals. This last one really stumps me as every currency I have ever seen (and I have traveled a lot) has had Arabic numerals in at least one corner. My friend couldn’t tell me any more about the script (though I asked her whether the characters were joined or separate, squarish or curly…).

By sheer probability, the note is from Asia, where there are several countries that use alternate scripts in south, southeast, and east Asia. In addition, the other non-Arabic scripts I know of would be from Ethiopia, Israel, the countries using the Cyrillic and Greek scripts, and the countries using Persian script (which is a modified Arabic script and I would guess use Arabic numbers). But none of these (as far as I know) completely excludes Arabic numbers on their bills.

Any guesses?

2

The only possible candidate I can think of is Thailand. I know some of the Thai coins used to show Thai numerals only (more modern issues also show Arabic numerals), but all the banknotes do show Arabic numerals, at least nowadays. Perhaps it was an older issue?

I’ve had a browse through this page which has pics of banknotes from just about every country, and I can’t find one with no Arabic numerals.

The Arabic numerals don’t exactly stand out on this Thai note (other side) which more or less fits the description in other ways.

3

It is hard to say from your description… Thai, Lao and Cambodian notes have both local script as well as western numerals. Other countries like Sri Lanka and the Maldives also have western numerals. Many notes will have local script on one side and western script on the other.

Libya and Algeria might be possible - though I think all have western numerals, but esp Libya is pretty serious about everything being Arabic and reducing the amount of English.

Bangladesh has had a few notes with no western numerals. Just a guess.

I keep a few bank notes from every country I have been to (60+ currencies) but can’t recall any matching this description.

4

PS: Your use of the term Arabic numerals is confusing… Arabs use different numbers than “Western numbers”. I realize in the West the numbers are called Arabic, for for someone living in an Arab country, they are “western numbers”.

5

Libyan notes have no Latin script but some pretty prominent Arabic numerals. Algeria likewise.

Edit: I agree about the “Arabic numerals” name being confusing. Wikipedia calls the non-Western Arabic numerals (٠.١.٢.٣.٤.٥.٦.٧.٨.٩ ) Eastern Arabic numerals but I’ve also heard them called “Indic”.

6

Wow, that’s what I love about the SDMB. You learn things that you didn’t even know you didn’t know! Thanks for the correction on term ‘Arabic numerals’.

So far the Thai note might be a possibility. The western (Indian) numeral on the pictured note might be easy to miss…

7

However that note that is quite an old one, and apparently has not been in circulation since 1978, so it seems unlikely that it would show up, unless someone had it in a drawer at home for years and then tried to palm it off next time they went travelling…

Incidentally that banknoteworld.com site is pretty fascinating. Some countries have some funky designs. Check out what Borat has in his wallet. :cool:

8

Thai notes are a possibility… they contain pretty large Thai (non-Western) numerals. Also the Thai currency is used as a hard currency in Laos/Cambodia and elsewhere in the region so are quite common to see throughout East Asia.