100 Dollars - Elizabeth II

The P#49 is the highest denomination in the Bahamas' 1974-series signature range and was never intended for everyday commerce — at 1984 face value, a single note represented roughly a week's wages for many Bahamians. Actual circulation was minimal; the notes functioned primarily as interbank instruments and for large-scale tourism transactions in Nassau and Freeport.

De La Rue's production of this series coincided with the Bahamas' ongoing effort to project monetary credibility in a dollar-pegged economy heavily dependent on offshore banking confidence. The 1:1 peg to the US dollar, maintained since independence in 1973, made the $100 denomination particularly sensitive to questions of counterfeiting — the lone watermark as primary security now looks thin by the standards even of that decade.