1 Kwacha

This note was introduced as Zambia's copper boom collapsed. The country had built its post-independence economy almost entirely on copper export revenues, and by the late 1970s falling global prices had created a fiscal crisis that accelerated inflation and currency depreciation throughout the issue period of this series. The 1 Kwacha was effectively losing purchasing power faster than Thomas De La Rue could ship replacement stock from London.

De La Rue's watermark security on this denomination was relatively minimal — appropriate for the lowest face value in the series, but a known vulnerability that attracted local counterfeiting pressure during the mid-1980s austerity years.