10 Pounds

Libya's first independent banknote series, of which this is the high-value note, was issued just months after the kingdom's proclamation in December 1951 — making this one of the earliest expressions of Libyan monetary authority under King Idris I. Bradbury Wilkinson, at that point one of the most trusted security printers in the Commonwealth orbit, handled the entire series from their New Malden works.

The 10 Pound denomination circulated in a country whose oil revenues were still negligible; the Libyan pound was backed initially by sterling reserves under a currency board arrangement, not by domestic production. Large-denomination notes like this saw limited everyday use in what was then one of the poorest economies on the African continent.