10 Dollars Streamer-tailed hummingbird, copper-nickel

Jamaica's dollar coinage underwent a significant redesign program in the late 1970s as the Manley government pushed a broader cultural nationalism agenda, deliberately replacing colonial-era imagery with endemic Jamaican fauna. The streamer-tailed hummingbird — found nowhere else on earth — was a pointed choice for the highest circulating denomination. The 1980 issue sits at a politically charged moment: Michael Manley lost the October 1980 general election to Edward Seaga in a campaign marred by serious political violence, making this a short-lived type before subsequent monetary pressures reshaped Jamaican coinage entirely.