1 Ringgit / Dollar - Hassanal Bolkiah Independence

Brunei's 1984 independence from Britain — after nearly a century as a protected state — made the country one of the last Southeast Asian nations to sever formal colonial ties. The Currency and Monetary Board had been issuing coins since 1967, but post-independence issues like this one carry the sultan's effigy under full sovereign authority rather than the constrained status of the protectorate period. Hassanal Bolkiah remains the world's longest-reigning absolute monarch still in power, having ruled since 1967.