10 Dollars

The Solomon Islands gained independence from Britain in 1978, and the Central Bank was established the same year to replace the British Solomon Islands dollar at par. This 1984 note belongs to the first substantive series issued under the new central bank's authority — the groundwork series, in practical terms, before the islands had developed much in the way of indigenous design direction. De La Rue printed almost everything coming out of newly independent Pacific territories in this period, and the execution here is competent but unremarkable.

Watermark-only security reflects the modest anti-counterfeiting requirements of an economy this small. Sophisticated forgery was simply not an operational concern.