10 Kwacha Reserve Bank

Malawi's gold coinage of the 1980s was produced almost entirely for export revenue and collector markets rather than domestic circulation — the country's economy at the time could not sustain a bullion or commemorative program aimed at its own population. The Reserve Bank issued these pieces under Hastings Banda's government, which maintained tight control over all foreign exchange instruments, and gold coin sales were effectively a hard-currency mechanism.

KM#18a is the gold variant of a type also struck in silver, a pairing common to Malawian commemorative issues of this decade.