1 Pound

Cyprus gained independence from Britain in August 1960, and this note — issued the following year — was among the first series released by the newly established Central Bank. The institutional groundwork had been rushed; the Central Bank of Cyprus was constituted under the Central Bank of Cyprus Law of 1963, meaning the 1961 issue technically predates the bank's formal legislative charter. The transitional monetary arrangements of the period make the precise issuing authority something specialists still debate.

Bradbury Wilkinson handled the printing, as they did for a substantial portion of the sterling-area colonial and post-colonial issues of the period. The New Malden facility was the workhorse of Commonwealth currency production in the early independence era.