Ethiopia P-47h 5 Birr 2017 UNC—Coffee's Birthplace—Lion of Judah—Kudu Antelope

Ethiopia P-47h 5 Birr 2009 (2017), Uncirculated.

• Color: Multicolor
• Variety: P-47h — final variety of the series; signature of Governor Dubale Jale (DA on note); serial prefixes CX–EI; Ethiopian calendar 1989–2009 (Gregorian 1997–2017)
• Front:
  • Man picking coffee beans at centre
  • Coffee plant at right
  • Lion’s head at centre left
  • Inscriptions in Ge’ez and Latin scripts
• Back:
  • Kudu (large spiral-horned antelope)
  • Caracal (sleek wild cat with long black-tufted ears, famous for leaping to snatch birds mid-flight)
  • Semien Mountains
  • Inscriptions in Ge’ez script
• Watermark: “NATIONAL BANK OF ETHIOPIA” repeated throughout (visible under backlight)
• Security Thread: Segmented foil security thread
• Signature: Dubale Jale (DA) — Governor, National Bank of Ethiopia
• Serial Number Prefix: CX–EI (variety h)
• Issuing Bank: National Bank of Ethiopia
• Currency: Birr (ISO: ETB, 1976–present)
• Denomination: 5 Birr
• Composition: Paper
• Size: 140 × 65 mm
• Shape: Rectangular
• Printers: De La Rue, London, UK (1821–present); Giesecke+Devrient, Leipzig, Germany (1852–present)
• Country: Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (1995–present); previously People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (1987–1991); Derg military regime (1974–1987); Empire of Ethiopia (to 1974)

Coffee: Ethiopia’s Gift to the World

The Crop on the Banknote

The figure on the obverse is not a generic agricultural worker — he is picking coffee, and that specificity matters enormously. Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee. The wild coffee plant (Coffea arabica) originated in the highland forests of the Kaffa region, and Ethiopians have been harvesting, roasting, and brewing it for well over a thousand years. The country remains one of the world’s top coffee producers, and coffee accounts for a substantial share of Ethiopia’s export earnings. To put a coffee picker on the national currency is to acknowledge, plainly, what keeps the economy alive.

The coffee plant depicted to the right of the figure is botanically accurate — the red cherries, the dark leaves. For a collector, it is a small reminder that the best banknote designs are not abstract: they are portraits of a country’s actual life.

The Lion of Judah

Symbol of Empire and Nation

The lion’s head at centre left is a direct reference to the Lion of Judah, one of Ethiopia’s most enduring national symbols. Under Emperor Haile Selassie, the Lion of Judah appeared on the imperial flag and coat of arms, representing the Solomonic dynasty’s claimed descent from the biblical King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The symbol survived the fall of the empire in 1974 and persists in Ethiopian iconography — on currency, in art, and in the global consciousness through the Rastafari movement, which regards Haile Selassie as a messianic figure.

The Reverse: Wildlife of the Ethiopian Highlands

Kudu, Caracal, and the Semien Mountains

The reverse brings together two of Ethiopia’s most striking wild animals against the backdrop of the Semien Mountains — a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of Africa’s most dramatic highland landscapes, with peaks exceeding 4,500 metres.

The Greater Kudu is one of Africa’s most elegant antelopes, recognizable by the male’s long spiral horns. The caracal — a medium-sized wild cat with distinctive tufted ears — ranges across Africa and into Asia, and is known for its extraordinary leaping ability. Their pairing on this note reflects Ethiopia’s remarkable biodiversity: the country is home to more endemic species than almost any other in Africa, a consequence of its varied altitude, climate, and geography.

A Final Reflection: The Weight of a Coffee Cherry

A 5 Birr note is not worth much in the market. But the coffee picker on its face represents an industry that feeds millions, a plant that changed the world’s mornings, and a country old enough to have given humanity one of its most beloved rituals. Ethiopia has been a civilization for three thousand years. It was never colonized — one of only two African nations to resist European partition. It has its own alphabet, its own calendar, its own church. All of that history is compressed, quietly, into a small rectangle of paper with a man and a coffee plant on the front.

A solid addition for collectors of African issues, Ethiopian series, or agricultural and wildlife-themed banknotes. Uncirculated examples of the final h variety are increasingly scarce as the design has been retired.