Prehistory of litas

After the declaration of Independence of Lithuania on February 16, 1918 non-exchangeable paper notes issued by the German occupation authorities were used as the currency in the country. German authorities used the paper notes, known as Ost-Marks, to confiscate food and valuable things from the residents of the occupied territories in order to credit the economy of Germany. Therefore, the primary task of the newly established state was to introduce the goldbased currency. The Germans, losing in the World War, opened the way for neighbouring countries to attack the new unarmed state. Lithuania fought for its capital Vilnius defending it against the Russian occupation, but lost it and Lithuanian authorities fled to Kaunas. At the same time, in 1919, Lithuania was attacked by the West Russian Volunteer Army from Latvia and the Red Army from Belarus. During the War of Independence, the Lithuanian government, led by Mykolas Sleževičius, began preparations to adopt the Lithuanian currency. It was to be based on the French franc standard and be called “Muštinis” in honour of the largest silver coin in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Artists Antanas Žmuidzinavičius and Adomas Galdikas were called upon to design the banknotes. They had to prepare draft banknotes with denominations of 0.5, 1, 5, 10, 25, 50 and 1000. Initially, it was planned to print banknotes in Sweden. The loan granted by Great Britain was to finance the first issue of the Lithuanian currency, but its granting was suspended due to the unresolved situation of the Lithuanian state. Lithuania had to fight for the market with Ost-Marks until October 1, 1922, when the Legislative Assembly of Lithuania passed the National Currency Act introducing Litas. Lithuanian numismatists were startled by the discovery of 0.5, 1, 5, 10, 100 and 1000 Muštinis notes designs for print by BRADBURY, WILKINSON & Co LTD Company (England), which appeared in Conect.com online catalogue. The discovery of these designs changes the entire prehistory of Litas because so far only the designs of A. Žmuidzinavičius Muštinis from 1919 were known. The plates of the banknotes are of sufficiently high quality, but they do not contain the numbers and no facsimile signatures of the members of the Board of the Bank, which means that it was unconfirmed design. They are dated 1920. The coat of arms of Lithuania on banknotes is similar to the coat of arms designed by A. Žmuidzinavičius, but fonts used for the legend are similar to ones designed by A. Galdikas, therefore, the authorship of these designs is unclear. It seems that Lithuania side aborted preparation for printing of these notes when failed negotiations for the loan. Regardless of the failure of this project, the Lithuanian government maintained contact with BRADBURY, WILKINSON & Co LTD and they printed Litas banknotes issues from 1927 until 1938