1 Pound

The Canadian Bank Note Company held Syria's printing contract through much of the 1970s, an arrangement that placed Ottawa at the center of a Cold War-era Arab state's currency production — not an obvious pairing, but CBC was actively competing for Middle Eastern government contracts during this period. The 1977 series was issued under the Assad government's second decade of Ba'athist economic management, when Syria was running significant deficits partly tied to post-1973 war reconstruction costs.

Pick 99 is not a scarce note in circulated grades, but finding examples without the characteristic horizontal fold through the center — a result of how these were bundled in Syrian bank branches — takes some patience.