SOMERTON MAN: HAY NOTES PART 2. With thanks to Mick Vort Ronald..

 HAY BANKNOTES

The back of the note shows 25 sheep and hidden within the fleece of each is the name of an internee, In all, we have 25 internees names.

 As you can see we have both front and back views of the Hay Internment Camp banknote with a 2 shilling denomination. These were designed by George Teltscher, a graphic designer of considerable skill and who had already designed a currency for the Austrian Government in the 1930s.

George was a very competent artist and also an engraver. He was later to change his name to GEORGE ADAMS with that surname being that of his mother, a US citizen.

Over the past few years, we have looked at thes notes a number of times but on this occasion, we have the benefit of more ex[perience and better photographic equipment as you will see in the images below:

Stahl Signature Close Up

In this image, we have marked up 5 specific areas of the signature that show evidence of micro written letters and numbers:

In the image below, you can see that what in the first image looks like strands of barbed wire are in fact strings of numbers and letters written in red, as indicated by the number 5 in the image above and in the magnified area in the image:

This next image was taken at a slightly different angle and better lighting. It shows micro written letters and numbers in better detail:

Here we can see number/letter strings with details shown in blue:

Another clear example of tiny lettering and numbers within the Stahl signature, in my view these letters and numbers were done in pencil after the signature had been printed out:

From these images we can see that there are many examples of letters and numbers, none of which appear to make any sense as in they do not appear to have any logic to them and are just randomly placed in various locations within the notes. I believe that it's down to a simple anti-counterfeit method. An image is taken of what you see above and if a suspected counterfeit note is detected it would be a very simple task to verify it against the random characters. However, I have not as yet done a complete review of this note and it may be that other strings have some kind of logic and meaning.

Why is this information important?

It is important because this technique of miniature writing hidden within cursive writing or capital letters and completed in March 1941, was also used in March 1942 when the letter Q of the SM code page revealed the numbers of two ships:

1. The USS New Orleans CA 32

2. HMAS Deloraine J232

This same technique was found to have been used in the handwritten inscription of verse 70 found in a copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam believed to have been done by Jessica. It was also found that Alf Boxall later added the number 70 to this inscribed page and that number, as you will see in our next post, also contained micro written letters and numbers.

I will be adding more to this story of the Hay Banknotes, they form an intriguing introduction to the Somerton Man Code page and the discovery of the second man found poisoned in Adelaide in December 1948.

Again, my sincere thanks to Mick Vort Ronald who not only is highly skilled in the matter of numismatics, he also served with distinction in the SA Police Force. You'll find more information about Mick and his work here:

http://www.australianbanknotes.net/books/books.htm