1 Leone Independence

Sierra Leone achieved independence in April 1961, but commemorative gold issues tied to that event appeared sporadically across the following decades as the country's successive governments used bullion coinage partly to generate hard currency revenue. By 1987, Sierra Leone was deep into the economic deterioration that would precede the civil war of the 1990s, and state-authorized gold issues of this period were produced primarily for export sale rather than domestic circulation.

The .917 fineness places this squarely in the crown gold tradition inherited from British colonial monetary practice.