Is it possible to differentiate Afghan Jumbishi/Warlord Money from Government issued Afghanis?

Good day to those who are reading this!

For those who aren't in for my long story TLDR: I heard about a local warlord currency in Afghanistan called “Jumbishi” and I want to know if it can be differentiated from Government issued “Rabbani/Daulati” money.

I am going into great detail and depth into this subject because I find it extremely fascinating and hope that this can be used as a reference for others who are interested.

I was recently reading through the Wikipedia page on Abdul Rashid Dostum. This man was a warlord active in Northern Afghanistan during the 1990s. On that page, it mentioned that Mr. Dostum “printed his own Afghan currency”. This marked the beginning of my journey. From there, I cross-referenced other pages on Wikipedia such as the page on Mazar-i-Sharif, his capital city. To my surprise, Dostum's “local currency” was mentioned time and time again, albeit briefly. This told me that he perhaps did in fact produce his own Afghanis. My leads on Wikipedia by this time were essentially exhausted, but, I was not able to sufficiently answer whether or not this was true.

Next came a quick Google search. I basically looked up “Afghanistan warlord currency” or something like that. To my surprise once again, there were a few articles referencing Dostum's currency. In those articles (mostly dating from 2002) this warlord currency was called “Jumbishi” after his militia and warlord group named “Jumbish-e-Milli”. Many were discussing Afghanistan's transition to the Second Afghani, but most of these only briefly mentioned the Jumbishi money. At the most, they discussed exchange rates and such. 

One interesting thing to note, however, was that Jumbishi money was valued at ½ the value of the Government issued money. Now, the particular notes under this classification of “Government issued money” were largely the 1978-1991 series produced by the Rabbani & Daulat Governments. As such these government notes were called “Rabbani” money or the “Daulati”. Also, it was implied quite often that the Daulati and Jumbishi currencies were very different. Money changers, for example, liked to keep the two types of notes separate.

Based on these observations, I (albeit incorrectly) assumed that the two currencies had differing designs. After all, Mr. Dostum essentially ran his provinces as an entirely separate nation. So began my prolonged and fruitless search for an image of Jumbishi money. As expected, nothing turned up. Going back to the articles, I discovered two of them (one by the Christian Science Monitor and the other by IPS news) mentioned that the two currencies, Jumbishi and Daulati, were basically identical. 

IPS News said:

“Dostum’s currency, also printed in Moscow, looks identical to those printed by Rabbani in almost every respect except for variations in colour and serial numbers.”

Christian Science Monitor Said:

“It's difficult to distinguish the difference in the two currencies (Rabbani Govt & Dostum Jumbishi), but it is significant . . . Poring over two bills, Qadir explains how to recognize government money. For one, it is a shade darker than Jumbishi money. Also, the red serial numbers, printed in Persian, not Arabic numerals, begin with 1 through 34. Any serial number higher than 35 denotes Jumbishi money.”

These two passages, particularly the one by CSM, reinvigorated my quest. I perused dozens of photos of every denomination of Afghani produced and I noticed two things. The first was that all of the serial numbers since at least the monarchy era were printed in Persian numerals. Although Persian and Arabic numbers are essentially identical, the script for numbers “4” and “6” are different. Despite this, I could not find one banknote that had an Arabic “4” in the serial number in any era from the monarchy to the present, only ones in Persian. My second observation was that color differences were nearly impossible to notice considering the varying degrees of wear on each note as well as the fact that many had different image qualities.

I am nearly convinced now that it is near-impossible to tell the two apart, especially considering that likely a large portion of all surviving notes have already been redeemed. However, I've learned to never underestimate the numismatic community. Since my own leads have utterly dried up by this point, I am appealing to anyone and everyone reading this to help.

Here are my resources:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1790313.stm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_afghani

https://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0111/p8s1-wosc.html

https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/afghanistan-focus-introduction-new-currency

http://www.ipsnews.net/2002/05/economy-afghanistan-rival-factions-rival-currencies/

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/index.php?e=afghanistan&r=&ct=banknote&im1=&im2=&tbb=y&tbc=y&tbl=y&tbt=y&cat=y&ru=&ca=931&no=&v=&i=&b=&ib=&u=&a=&dg=1980-2001&m=&f=&t=&t2=&mt=&g=&se=&d=&c=&wi=&sw=

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Rashid_Dostum#Civil_war_and_northern_Afghanistan_autonomous_state

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazar-i-Sharif#Late_20th_century

Once again, sorry for the incredibly long read but I just found this subject to be so utterly captivating that I just needed to share everything.

Thank you all very much,

- Hezekiah

Very, interesting. The short answer is Yes, it should be possible to identify the Warlord issues. 

Generally speaking, there will be differences in a banknote that is a perfect forgery of another unless the original printing plates were used by the forger. For the purposes of this case the perfect ‘forgeries’ are those of the Warlord.

As an example, in the 1930s the Soviet Union made near perfect forgeries of western currencies, including most notably the Series 1914 US $100 Federal Reserve note. 

These went unnoticed for decades until after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the records of the forgeries surfaced. 

On close examination, some tiny differences were noticed between forgeries and the the genuine notes.

Coming back to the Afghan issues, a close examination of the serial numbers on the notes may help to easily identify the Warlord notes if original plates were used. If the forgers had to make their own plates, there will likely be detectable differences between the forgeries and the originals.

As a start, I would would approach the problem by making a 2400 dpi true resolution scan of a Warlord note and of a Government note, and compare the two in Photoshop to look for differences.

Just a thought, there could be differences in the paper used by each, Moscow and Jumbishi. Not sure what they would be but maybe a conservator might be able to tell techniques to distinguish.

ThePoet

Just a thought, there could be differences in the paper used by each, Moscow and Jumbishi. Not sure what they would be but maybe a conservator might be able to tell techniques to distinguish.

A very good suggestion - either a low grade or high grade Jumbishi note might show noticeable differences when compared to a similar grade note suspected of being a Moscow note.

Additionally, if the notes have a watermark which is easy to see, it may be different between the two manufacturers.

Hibernia

Very, interesting. The short answer is Yes, it should be possible to identify the Warlord issues. 

 

Generally speaking, there will be differences in a banknote that is a perfect forgery of another unless the original printing plates were used by the forger. For the purposes of this case the perfect ‘forgeries’ are those of the Warlord.

 

As an example, in the 1930s the Soviet Union made near perfect forgeries of western currencies, including most notably the Series 1914 US $100 Federal Reserve note. 

These went unnoticed for decades until after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the records of the forgeries surfaced. 

On close examination, some tiny differences were noticed between forgeries and the the genuine notes.

 

Coming back to the Afghan issues, a close examination of the serial numbers on the notes may help to easily identify the Warlord notes if original plates were used. If the forgers had to make their own plates, there will likely be detectable differences between the forgeries and the originals.

 

As a start, I would would approach the problem by making a 2400 dpi true resolution scan of a Warlord note and of a Government note, and compare the two in Photoshop to look for differences.

Thanks for replying! Sorry I haven't gotten back and responded sooner. I've been quite busy since the new semester just started.

I believe that Dostumi/Jumbishi money was more or less a forgery. However, I doubt that they used the original printing plates since although Domstum did have access to them during his capture of Kabul in 1992, it seems like he left the actual governance to others. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's push toward Kabul mainly preoccupied Dostum at this time. 

I'm certain that there are differences between the two (if not three or four) different issuances of the Afghani from 1978 to 2002. The problem is that no one seems to know the differences. It does not seem like anyone has done substantial research into this.

As for the 2400 DPI scans, I believe my father has the equipment to do something like that. My main problem is being able to procure specimens. Since no one seems to know the difference between the Daulati and the Jumbishi, I would likely have to gather quite a large amount of specimens. Even with that many notes, there is no guarantee that a Jumbishi note will appear. 

Also, despite how inexpensive Afghanis are, it adds up. Simply buying one of each denomination would cost me roughly $60 USD. Then imagine having to buy two or three notes of each denomination only for them all to be Daulatis.

What I could do is buy a whole bunch of notes from one denomination. I know with a good deal of certainty that at least 100 and 10,000 Afghani notes were produced by Dostum's administration. However, that leads me back to the predicament that every note might still yet come up as Daulatis instead of Jumbishis. I, being a student, am not willing to spend even $100 on a lot without receiving what I really want. It's like buying a coin lot expecting that maybe one or two of them might be a rare die variety only for them all to be the same and the most common variety at that.

Then again, even if I did have multiple examples, I would have no idea what I'm looking for. I am no professional numismatist and banknotes aren't even my forte. Sorry for being so critical but I need something more than speculation. Thanks for your response and contributions nonetheless.

I give you a contact that might have an answer. Www.Joelscoins.com. He is selling a set of Soviet occupied Afganistan notes. He has a short write up on them but seems to clump the soviet and warlord currency together. His set of 4 banknotes is only 6$ US.

He is very approachable. I have bought many things from him and he has answered all my questions. Give him a go if he doesnot know maybe he has a contact with more information.

Thanks for the tip! I'll be sure to check it out in a bit. $6 for a single note in a lot of 4 sounds like a great deal to me. Peace be upon you!

Edit: just bought it and am awaiting it's arrival in the mail.