Newly Discovered Banknotes Bearing Portraits of Saddam Hussein are Expected to Fetch Up £17,000 At Noonans
The notes are expected to fetch up to £17,000 at Noonans.
A full set of trial banknotes from the Central Bank of Iraq, dating from 1990, featuring Saddam Hussein that were never printed due to the First Gulf War, will be offered at Noonans in an auction of World Banknotes on Wednesday, May 27, 2026. They are being sold by private collectors and are expected to fetch a total of £17,000.
As Andrew Pattison, Head of the Banknote Department at Noonans, explains: “This remarkable trio of notes was prepared by De La Rue, the famous British printing firm, for issue in 1990 or 1991. Prior to this date, the relationship between the British and Iraqi states had been cordial, but following Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, and the swift response by the combined forces of the United Nations, known as the First Gulf War, it was no longer politic for De La Rue to continue to print banknotes for Iraq. This ended a relationship that had begun right at the start of the modern Iraqi state in 1932, when Bradbury Wilkinson (later bought by De La Rue) printed banknotes featuring the first King of Iraq, Faisal I.”
He continues: “These three ‘specimens’ or 'proof’ notes featuring Saddam Hussein were in the very late stages of the design process, seemingly with everything ready to go, when the order was put on hold by the war. The 5 and 10 Dinars have been known for several years, but are very rare, with at most a dozen examples of each known in various formats. The 25 Dinars was suspected to exist, but this is the first full printed note ever found, and the first to come to market. As a truly new discovery, a remarkable thing in modern numismatics, it is sure to attract huge interest.”
The previously unknown and unadopted 25 Dinars note, which is an incredibly rare and potentially unique note, is expected to fetch £5,000-£7,000 [lot 281]; while the specimen 10 Dinars carries an estimate of £4,000-£5,000 [lot 282] and the extremely rare specimen 5 Dinars is estimated at £4,000-£5,000 [lot 283].
