1 Dollar

The mid-1990s were an extraordinarily difficult period for Sierra Leone — the RUF insurgency had fractured the country's economy, and the government was issuing commemorative coinage largely for the export collector market rather than domestic circulation. Pieces like this one were essentially hard-currency generation instruments, sold abroad while the leone itself collapsed in purchasing power.

KM#47 is one of several foreign-market commemoratives struck to this specification in 1997, the same year of the AFRC military coup that briefly ousted President Kabbah.