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2 Leones
| Issuer | Bank of Sierra Leone |
|---|---|
| Year | 1980 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | P#11 |
| Obverse description | At left, a portrait of President Siaka Stevens is set within an ornate frame against a red-brown guilloche underprint. To the right, a circular commemorative overprint bears the inscription 'COMMEMORATING THE ORGANISATION OF AFRICAN UNITY CONFERENCE - FREETOWN 1980' with the date '1ST JULY 1980'. Three facsimile signatures for the Governor, Deputy Governor, and Directors are arranged across the centre field. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The central vignette presents the Bank of Sierra Leone headquarters building in Freetown in a three-quarter perspective view with surrounding grounds. The national arms of Sierra Leone appear in an intaglio medallion at upper right, flanked on each side by the numeral '2'. Decorative rosette guilloche patterns fill the left and right margins in red-brown ink. |
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| Comments |
The Bank of Sierra Leone's early note series, including this 1980 issue, was printed by Thomas De La Rue throughout — a relationship typical of Anglophone West African central banks that inherited their institutional frameworks from British colonial banking arrangements. Sierra Leone had held its own currency since the Leone's introduction in 1964, replacing the West African pound, but the 2 Leone denomination in this period circulated heavily in everyday transactions and wore quickly in the humid coastal climate.
P#11 is the third printer's run for this denomination following independence-era issues, with De La Rue's watermark the primary anti-counterfeiting measure — modest by the standards of what the same printer was producing for other clients at the time.