The 1996 date places this coin squarely in the middle of Sierra Leone's catastrophic civil war, which had been grinding since 1991 under the RUF insurgency. Coin production under those conditions was largely a formality — the economy had fragmented to the point where formal currency played a diminishing role in daily exchange across much of the country.
The 1996 date places this coin squarely in the middle of Sierra Leone's catastrophic civil war, which had been grinding since 1991 under the RUF insurgency. Coin production under those conditions was largely a formality — the economy had fragmented to the point where formal currency played a diminishing role in daily exchange across much of the country.