2 Leones

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.